Posted on by Matt Thomas

Did My Grandfather Tom Thomas Kill a Man in Japan in 1941?

Author’s Note: This essay is based on a story my grandfather told me when I was thirteen years old, my surviving memories of that story thirty-eight years later, and the limited historical context I have so far been able to establish. Throughout, I have tried to distinguish between what I know, what I remember, what I merely suspect, and what may simply have become family legend.

That distinction matters. I do not yet have Tom’s complete Navy records, and I have not independently established that the central incident described here occurred at all. Some of the chronology is almost certainly wrong.

There is, however, one promising development. While finishing this piece, I called my mother and learned that the family autobiography I wrote in eighth grade from taped interviews with Tom apparently still exists. The original cassette tapes are almost certainly gone. The written project, however, may be sitting in a box inside a tub somewhere in a shed in California.

Naturally.

If it surfaces, the case reopens.

Epigraph:

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
—L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between

It’s been a long time, mama, since I heard you call my name
Ah, been a long time since I heard you call my name
I got to see my Colorado girl again
—Townes Van Zandt, “Colorado Girl”

I. Introduction

My grandfather Tom Thomas once told me that he killed a man in Japan.

I was thirteen years old when he told me this. I believed him. Thirty-eight years later, I am no longer entirely sure. I have been wanting to write this story for many years. The story has remained lodged somewhere between family history, childhood memory, and legend: an extraordinary story told to a boy by his grandfather and preserved, imperfectly, across nearly four decades.

Now I would like to know what actually happened.

II. The Family Autobiography

In the spring of 1988, when I was in eighth grade at St. George’s School outside Spokane, Washington, my social studies teacher, Laura Pierce, assigned us a family autobiography project.

Laura was a nice woman and a good social studies teacher. I was friends with her son Ben, who was a year or two older than I was. The Pierces lived in a modest suburban home about twelve minutes north of St. George’s. My parents, my brothers, and I lived a little farther north in Wayside, Washington, which in those days was far out in the country.

When my brothers and I were younger, we sometimes went to the Pierces’ neighborhood for Halloween. This was in the early to mid 1980s, and it was the era of panic about tainted candy on Halloween. My feeling today is that this panic was largely, if not entirely, overblown. Nevertheless, we checked our candy haul for razors carefully. We never found any.

Wayside was not much good for trick-or-treating unless you were prepared to hike half a mile between houses. The Pierces had neighbors.

These are some memories of my time. I mention them here because I am trying to establish what I know, what I remember, and what I merely think I remember.

I believe Laura assigned the autobiography project sometime around March 1988. I cannot today establish this date with any degree of certainty. The project took some time, and we finished eighth grade in early June. Four years later, twenty-eight of us graduated from St. George’s together, so I guess my eighth-grade class would have been roughly the same size.

For my project, I chose to interview my paternal grandfather, Tom Thomas. I sent him a list of questions, and he kindly sent back about half a dozen tapes. On the tapes he talked about his whole life, with a focus on his time in World War II. Tom was a career Navy man who also served in the Korean War. I believe he served valiantly, and he told me that he shot in the leg on one of the islands off of Guam; I believe in 1944. He leg healed and he went on to a successful real estate career in Healdsberg CA, just outside of Napa Valley. I believe that he did quite well for himself, and by the time I was little he was already retired. Gin was a lifelong housewife. I was born in 1974, so my first memories of him and his wife Virginia (Gin) would have been around 1977.

My parents Ross and Claudia and my younger brother Mike visited Tom and Gin almost every summer until the late 1980s. We called them Moo Grandpa and Moo Nana because they owned cows. My mother’s parents Bill and Barbara were Regular Grandpa and Regular Nana as they lived in the city of Santa Clara.

We would usually start just three or four days with Tom and Gin, and often a week or two with Bill and Barbara. At this remove, I am not exactly sure why this was, however it may have been the fact that Tom was not, at least of the time, the nicest man. Tom died in 2001 and Gin in 1996, so RIP to two real ones. There is no avoiding the fact, however, that Tom had a bit of a mean streak.

Looking back today, I fully understand why this was. He grew up in rural Colorado in the early part of the 20th century. He was born in 1916 to a homesteader family, and he told me for the biography that his own father was a drinker and had a mean streak too. I believed this and still do. Tom and Gin liked to drink too, and I remember every evening at 5 PM sharp that would make martinis in what I then saw as a pretty swank cocktail set.

Tom would have maybe two martinis before dinner as I recall, while Gin would usually have just one. He probably had a few more drinks with dinner. I don’t ever remember him drinking beer or wine, so my guess is he stuck with martinis. I myself have inherited a taste for alcohol, and today I would describe myself as a managed drinker. I have also had periods of my life where I drank more, however that is a subject for another day.

In addition to having a bit of a mean streak, Tom could also be very generous. My parents bought a house in the country somewhere north of Spokane, WA in I believe 1980 or 1981 and it turned out to be a bit of a con job as the house had no water. This was a problem because everyone needs water, and also because my parents had zero money at the time. My dad was just starting his teacher career at St. George’s School in Spokane, one of the two most prestigious private school in the city. Prestigious though it may have been, it did not pay well/ Spokane only had about a quarter of million people at that time. It probably has more today, but I am note sure as I have not been back for 25 years. I never really cared for Spokane, however I do have fond memories overall of growing up there.

In any case, my folks needed to get out of the house with no water pronto and Tom kindly paid the entire down payment on a new house, in Wayside. Wayside was also north of Spokane, however it was much closer to school, just about a 17 minute drive. I can state this with certainly because we made the drive every school day for the 13 years I attended St. George’s.

III. The Yokohama Incident

As mentioned above Tom Thomas served in the United States Navy for about 20 years. At one point in the late 1930s, he said, he was a military policeman. I do not have his service record in front of me, and I am not going to convert rather vague memories into historical fact just to make the story cohere. His exact Navy rating, rank, assignments, and dates of service are unknown to me. That distinction will become important.

What follows is the story as I remember Tom telling it to me.

He told me that he was stationed in Japan sometime in the very 1930’s and perhaps the early 1940’s. As I will go into in more detail below, when I ran this story by my good friend Sergio Mandiola a few weeks ago he said a US Navy man would absolutely not have been stationed in Japan in 1941 at all, and in addition he said that it was also quite unlikely to have happened in 1940. He went on to say that if indeed such an took place, it may have occurred in 1938 or 1939 when US Japan relations were still at least on reasonably good terms.

My present recollection places him in Yokohama, although I do not want to claim more precision than the available evidence permits. For many years I have remembered the incident as occurring in 1941—more specifically around October 1941.

This date may be wrong. It is almost certainly is.

The location may be wrong, although I am confident that Tom did tell me that he stationed in Yokohama at some point.

In any case, Tom told me was that he was off duty one night and drinking in a bar with some of his fellow servicemen somewhere in Yokohama. A Japanese man came into the establishment extremely drunk and began causing trouble.

Tom intervened, and the man left the bar, only to come back several hours later with a knife. By this point, Tom said, it was very late, and we can assume that everybody had been drinking. As Tom exited the bar, the man came at him with the knife and Tom defended himself. Tom was not a tall man, however he was quite well built. Things went his way, and he tossed the man off a small cliff his death.

Again, I want to be careful here. I don’t remember whether Tom said that his position as a military policeman formally obligated him to intervene, whether he simply felt some responsibility for maintaining order, or whether he was a young sailor who decided that somebody needed to throw a drunk out of a bar and that somebody was going to be him.

I want to make this distinction clear because thirty-eight years is a long time and memory has a habit of polishing its own edges.

I do not merely remember Tom inferring that the man died. I remember my he telling me that he killed him.

IV. Aftermath

According to Tom, this was not the end of the matter.

He told me that the killing caused some degree of difficulty between the United States and Japan. This is understandable, as the two countries were, at the time, on anything but good terms. My recollection is that he said the whole thing became a minor diplomatic incident.

I also remember Tom telling me that he was imprisoned afterward, and my recollection was that he spent several months in a Navy prison or brig in Japan.

That is one of the details I now strongly suspect to be wrong.

Perhaps Tom said he was imprisoned somewhere else. Perhaps thirteen-year-old me misunderstood. Perhaps I have unconsciously moved the prison back to Japan in order to make the story narratively tidy.

And this is where my friend Mandiola enters the story.

V. Mandiola Objects

As mentioned above, when I told Mandiola the story some he told me “dude no way.”

He didn’t buy the date.

Mandiola is one of the smartest people I know and knows more history than anyone I have ever met. When I told him that my recollection placed Tom in Yokohama in October 1941, his reaction was immediate.

No way in hell.

Mandiola did not necessarily doubt that some version of the incident could have happened. His objection was to my chronology and to some of the surrounding circumstances. He thought an earlier date—perhaps 1938 or 1939—was considerably more plausible.

I agreed.

After all, it would be foolish of me to regard a date remembered from a conversation in 1988 as incontrovertible evidence. But I also don’t want to correct the record before I have investigated it fully. For now, therefore, I am leaving 1941 on the board.

VI. Why the Date Matters

The relationship between the United States and Japan changed enormously during the years immediately preceding the Pacific War.

Japan seized Manchuria in 1931 and established the puppet state of Manchukuo the following year. Full-scale war between Japan and China erupted in 1937. The United States and other Western powers increasingly objected to Japanese expansion in China, while Washington gradually moved from diplomatic opposition toward economic pressure.

The confrontation intensified considerably in 1940 and 1941.

Japan joined Germany and Italy in the Tripartite Pact in September 1940. The United States progressively restricted exports of strategically important materials to Japan while increasing support for China. Japanese expansion into French Indochina further worsened relations. In July 1941, after Japan moved into southern French Indochina, the Roosevelt administration froze Japanese assets in the United States. In practice, the resulting restrictions threatened Japan’s access to the imported oil upon which both its economy and military depended. Japan consequently faced a severe strategic problem.

However it would be misleading to reduce the road to Pearl Harbor to a simple story in which the United States surrounded an innocent Japan and cut off its oil, leaving Japan no alternative but war. The economic pressure did not emerge from nowhere. It developed in response to years of Japanese military expansion in Asia. Japanese leaders nevertheless increasingly perceived themselves as being strategically contained and economically strangled.

Negotiations between Washington and Tokyo continued through 1941 even as both sides prepared for the possibility of war.

Then, on December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.

This is why the date in my grandfather’s story matters so much.

1938 is not 1941. Neither is 1939.

An altercation involving an American serviceman and a Japanese civilian would have existed within a substantially different political environment depending on in which year it occurred. so the question becomes:

Was Tom Thomas actually in Japan when he said this happened?

This ought to be knowable.

VII. Opening the Case

Mandiola suggested that if I really wanted to investigate the story, I should look for American records from the time.

He mentioned the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Having looked into the matter further, I suspect the National Archives and military records will be more useful.

This is where the story stops being merely a family anecdote and becomes an investigation. First, I would to get my hands on Tom’s Navy service record.

I want to know when he enlisted, where he was stationed, his rank in the Navy, the ships or shore posts to which he was assigned, and—most importantly—where he was during the years immediately before Pearl Harbor.

If Tom was sitting in San Diego throughout 1938, 1939, 1940, and 1941, we then have a problem.

If, on the other hand, he appears in naval records connected to Japan or Yokohama during this period, we have something considerably more interesting.

Then there is the alleged imprisonment.

If Tom in fact killed a Japanese civilian, was arrested or detained, and spent some number months in military confinement, I would expect at least the possibility of a documentary trail. There may be disciplinary records. There may be court-martial material. There may be official correspondence of some kind.

And then there are the Japanese records.

I have a distinct recollection that Tom told me the incident made the Japanese papers. I am less certain of this memory than I am of the killing itself, so I want to mark it accordingly. But if a Japanese newspaper did report the death of a Japanese man following an altercation with an American sailor, that changes everything. It would, at a minimum, have been news.

There is even likely to be diplomatic correspondence if Tom was right that the affair caused some kind of friction between the two countries.

Or there could be no records of any kind.

This would tell us something too.

VIII. Memory Is Not an Archive

Here are the facts that I want to establish:

i) What actually happened in Japan nearly ninety years ago?

ii) How accurate is Tom’s version of events?

iii) In turn, how accurate are my own recollections of what he told in 1988?

Memory does not operate like a filing cabinet. We lose things. We combine them. We unconsciously embellish chronology. Details that once carried periods eventually acquire question marks.

Sometimes families do this collectively. An event becomes an anecdote. An anecdote becomes a story. The story gets told often enough that eventually nobody remembers which pieces belonged to the event and which pieces belonged to the telling.

Maybe Tom killed a man.

Maybe he fought a man who survived and the story grew in telling over the years.

Maybe the basic event happened but I have misremembered some of the facts.

Maybe my grandfather was bullshitting his grandson with a magnificent sailor’s yarn.

At thirteen, none of these possibilities occurred to me. My grandfather told me something. I wrote it down.

At fifty-two, I simply want more evidence.

IX. Why Now?

This raises the question: Why am I doing this now?

I originally went to graduate school to study history. In January 1999, I enrolled at Northern Arizona University (NAU) intending to complete a master’s degree in Asian history within two years.

I almost made it.

I wrote approximately twenty-five pages of the first chapter of my thesis, which I still have in print form, and accumulated perhaps another hundred pages of notes in various stages of usefulness. For somewhat complex reasons that I have discussed elsewhere, I never finished the thesis.

I left NAU in August of 2001.

Within two months, I was back in my wife’s hometown of Kumamoto, Japan, teaching English to preschoolers. Not long afterward I joined Ritsumeikan Uji Senior High School in South Kyoto. I have now worked there for twenty-four years.

Teaching is a good profession. It has been my profession for a very long time, and I am past ready to do something else.

I have now written blogs with varying degrees of regularity since 2008, and now write almost daily for my current blog the Kyoto Kibbitzer. I think I am a good writer. At a minimum, I have considerable range. And I am trying, with more seriousness than before, to professionalize my writing.

Writing is, unfortunately, a notoriously difficult way to make a living.

J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown have made fortunes from it. Although I consider myself a better writer than both of these people, I have zero expectation of reaching anything remotely resembling their fame or fortune.

I would settle for less.

If I can patch over patch together a modest living through writing, online tutoring, and perhaps another job or two here and there, I can imagine selling my house and moving somewhere cheaper. Perhaps downtown Kyoto. Perhaps Osaka.

Increasingly, however, I find myself thinking about Thailand.

Bangkok is too large, crowded, and noisy for me. Pattaya, on the other hand, attracts me, and I am hoping to visit soon if my financial circumstances cooperate. If I do manage get there this summer, I will assess its suitability as a place to live.

All of this may seem some distance from a Japanese bar in the years just prior to World War II.

To me it isn’t.

I am trying to decide what kind of writer I want to be during the next part of my life. I write about music. I write fiction. I am working on my memoirs. I write about education, sex, dreams, politics, bars, cities, relationships, and whatever else happens to interest me on a particular morning.

I would also like to return to history, at to least modest extent.

And if I am serious about becoming a little of an historian again, then I owe this story more than the version I have been carrying around since I was thirteen.

I owe Tom more than that too.

X. The Open Case

I am going to try to find out what happened in 1941, or whenever it happened, if anything happened at all.

This mother I asked my mother if she still has the family biography. She said she thought in was a box somewhere, and she would try to find it soon.

Then, when I have the time, I will send an email to the National Archives.

If I can establish Tom’s military assignments, I can establish whether his story is even plausible. If I can establish this, I can begin narrowing down the dates. If I can pin point the date and location with reasonably accuracy, I may be able to consult Japanese newspaper archives from the time. If Tom really was imprisoned in Japan, which I now regard as unlikely, there may also a disciplinary record somewhere.

And perhaps, somewhere deep in an archive in Japan or the United States, there is another man’s name.

This possibility changes the story.

For nearly forty years the man Tom said he killed that night in Yokohama has existed in my mind only a legend

If he existed, he was more than that.

He had a name. He probably had a family. He had a life that began long before he allegedly walked into a bar drunk one night and encountered a young American sailor named Tom Thomas.

I would like to know who he was.

Maybe the records will vindicate my grandfather’s story.

Maybe they won’t.

My suspicion is that the truth will be more interesting. That perhaps somewhere beneath eighty-five years of history, forty years of storytelling, and thirty-eight years of my own imperfect memory, there is an actual event that gradually became the story I know of today.

But that’s only my suspicion.

For now, all I have is a deceased grandfather, an eighth-grade autobiography for 1988 that I hope to acquire soon, and an imperfect memory. And in any case, I have one hell of a family story.

That is enough to begin with.

Nearly ninety years after whatever happened happened, I am now determined to get to the bottom of it.

Stay tuned.

Dedication:

For my grandfather, Tom Thomas. Although we had our ups and downs over the years, I still love you very much.

Posted on by Matt Thomas

My Craig Finn Inspired Song “Problematic to the Max”

Note: Craig Finn is my favorite songwriter, and this song is directly inspired by him. This is my first time to write a Finn style song and I have done my best. I am not trying to imitate Finn exactly, or pretend that I can write exactly as he does. What I have tried to borrow from him is something more essential: his attention to people on the edges of the night, his gift for compressed narrative, his affection for damaged characters, his understanding that bars and diners contain entire moral universes, and above all his ability to make a song feel simultaneously funny, sad, dangerous, and deeply humane. If this song is any good it is because of Mr. Finn.

She came stepping out the club in her heels
She was problematic to the max
She had someone else’s cigarettes
And someone else’s jacket on her back
She said, “Don’t start asking questions
You ain’t gonna like the facts”
Then she laughed and checked her lipstick
In the window of a Cadillac

There were boys outside the pizza place
Trying hard to look relaxed
There were girls discussing exes
And all the ways they’d get them back
There was someone crying by the cash machine
Someone calling for a cab
She said, “Everyone wants forgiveness
No one wants to give it back”

And I said:

Baby, we can leave right now
Let’s just stop playing games
There’s a place that pours till morning
And the barkeep knows my name

We’ll stumble out at sunrise
See the bums shaking their cans
With the smoke still in our eyes
And the popo in their vans

She said she’d recently been seeing
A guy who worked in stocks
At first it felt quite freeing
But she was looking at the clock
He kept talking ’bout the markets
While she stared into her drink
She said, “A man can make a million
And still not know a fuckin’ thing”

We walked east along the river
Past the churches and the cranes
She said everybody loves you
Til they learn your middle name
Then she took my hand and said
Like she’d suddenly recalled
Though we were very good in bed
We weren’t having fun at all

And she said:

Honey, don’t get sentimental
That’s how everyone gets hurt
First you say you understand me
Then you start discussing worth

I’ve been good and I’ve been awful
Mostly somewhere in between
And I’m sick of getting judged
By the folks behind their screens

At four we found a diner
With the chairs turned upside down
The waitress poured us coffee
While I tried not to check her out
She said, “You two look exhausted”
We said, “That’s probably correct”
Then my friend began explaining
Why exhaustion gets respect

She said:


No one trusts in happy people
They assume they’ve missed a trick
Everything was going fine
Til she said “baby you’re a prick”

So I keep a couple bruises
And some stories in the back
Just in case somebody doubts me
When I say it’s been like that

The morning started leaking
Through the alleys by the tracks
She had kicked away her heels
And slipped into her slingbacks
There were punters there were pigeons
There were handbills in the street
There were people dreading Sunday
There were people starting weeks

At the corner she got quiet
Then she kissed me on the cheek
Said, “Don’t make this into something
When it’s barely been a week”
Then she climbed into a taxi
And she never once looked back

She came stepping out the club in her heels.
She was problematic to the max

Posted on by Matt Thomas

On Cheating at Golf (featuring cameos by my grandfather Bill Kolb and my Aunt’s Second Husband Jerry)

New Note:

At lot of people play golf. Most of them cheat. In this piece we will take a look at several varieties of golf cheating, taking as examples my maternal grandfather Bill Kolb and my aunt’s second husband Jerry.

My grandfather played golf for the entire time I knew him. Besides his family, golf was probably his passion. Bill was a so-so golfer at best. He could hit the ball pretty straight but never more than about 150 yards. His short game was better than his long game, and he liked to say “I just need to get it on the dance floor” (by which he meant the green.) Bill’s lack of distance played into an incident once where we were backed up behind a slower group who was messing about around the green. We were about 230 yards out, and I was planning on hitting a 5 wood approach. Bill told me to go ahead and hit, and I said I needed to wait because I might “get it there.” Bill said there was no way, and if I did he’d buy me a new pair of golf shoes. So I took out my 5 wood and smashed it right up into the group. Bill, to his credit, said “I’ll be darned,” and sure enough bought me a brand new pair of white golf shoes the next day that I kept for years. Bill’s power, naturally, receded even more as he got older, however his overall game stayed about the same. I’d guess that on your average U.S. public course his actual score would have been in the low 100s, give or take.

Now any golfer knows that a score in the low 100s, while certainly not great, is where a lot of golfers will land if they were to play every shot clean. However, very few golfers play every shot clean. Here is a non-comprehensive list of how golfers trim strokes off their total score. Some of these methods are outright cheating, while others may be agreed upon among the players before hand.

1. “Improving one’s lie.” This is a very common method of cheating that involves subtly, or not so subtly, adjusting the ball to a better lie (position) on the ground. This may include shifting the ball from wet grass to drier grass, nudging the ball out from behind a tree, moving the ball a few feet from an out-of-bounds position to an in-bounds one, pulling the ball out of shallow water onto dry land, and many other moves. In golf, a lie adjustment of just a few inches can sometimes make a huge difference, and can often be accomplished without another player seeing.

2. Flat out shaving strokes off your reported score. This rather brazen method is also quite common and simply involves lying about how many shots you hit. Players basically never do this when they played a good hole, for example a player will almost never claim to have scored a 4 on a par 4 when they actually scored a 5. This is because a 5, for an amateur player, is still a fine score. However, when a player scores let’s say an 8 (“a snowman”), or a 10 or 11 (“sticks”), the reported score may drop a few. Group mates usually know or suspect that cheating is happening, however if another player took 11 strokes this means they hit a bunch of grounders or something and it can be hard to keep track of everyone’s shots. In my experience, a cheating player may be asked “really, you scored a 7 there huh?” and may come back with “yeah 7 for me,” or the classic “oh yeah, I forgot one. It was an 8.” Basically everyone knows the cheating player is BSing, and sometimes a fellow player will call him or her on it. “That wasn’t a 7, come on dude.” But most of the time, especially if the game is not for money, people will let a few strokes here or there slide.

3. Shaving strokes by pretending certain swings were “practice.” This is most commonly seen when a player has landed in a sand trap (or “bunker”) and has taken 3 or 4 strokes to get out of there. Sand traps are great for cheating because many of them are sunk several feet into the ground, and it is often difficult for other players to tell what’s going on down there. Therefore, a player who hits a few balls into the wall of the sand trap in front of him can just fall back on the “those were just practice swings” move. If another player saw the swings, well the ball didn’t really move and it can be hard to tell. This move only really works in sand traps through because otherwise it becomes too overt.

4. Hitting the ball back in bounds from out of bounds. This is a move that I myself have pulled off many a time. I don’t respect out of bounds markers. Now, I understand that it’s not great to be crossing a busy road to get to a wayward drive and then hitting the ball back across said road. However, such thoroughfares aside I feel like a golfer should be able to chose to play any ball she can find. Nonetheless, although it is morally acceptable, this move is also technically cheating as you are supposed to take a penalty stroke or two.

5. Dropping a new ball on the ground when unable to find a lost ball. This is another very common move famously depicted in the James Bond movie Goldfinger and also I think a favorite of the Trumpster. In fact, that Trump probably stole this move from Goldfinger. A player pulls out this move when her drive or long iron has gone into the long grass or trees and after poking around, cannot be found. Here, the player will have a ball at the ready in a pocket and just casually drop the ball in a decent lie while calling out “I found it.” This move works well, and I recommend it to the golf cheater who wants to build a little subtlety into their repertoire.

6. Taking a “gimme.” A “gimme” is a shortish putt that instead of putting out the player just picks up and “counts.” Now I think this is actually against the spirit of golf in many ways because any golfer knows short putts are far from easy. In fact, short putts are fucking difficult. A two or three foot putt that a lot of players may take as gimmies are anything but, and can be extremely nerve-racking. A gimme player may shave 3–6 strokes easy over the course of a round from gimmes along. Gimme players suck, but they are everywhere, and many foursomes will just allow gimme play in the interest of speeding up the game and lowering scores. If a group is going to be a gimme group, they should really establish what this means. For example, a lot of putters have a leather grip of between one to two feet or so, and some people will play “gimmes inside the leather.” Putts inside the leather are still totally missable, however at least this is a standard. There is nothing worse than some dude looking at a 5 foot putt and just saying “I’m taking that.” Yeah, you’re taking it cause you’re missing it brother.

7. Taking a mulligan. This is only borderline cheating because it can only really be done by mutual agreement. A mulligan is when a golfer drives the ball into the water or the woods and just takes a do over. Some groups will give every player one mulligan per nine holes. I don’t really mind mulligan play, although it can reduce a total score by about 5. Mulligans are cheating, but they are civilized cheating.

8. Playing to one’s “handicap.” This is the most bizarre method of cheating, which I will explain a little later through the lens of my aunt’s second husband Jerry.

So my grandfather Bill Kolb, as you will already have ascertained, cheated at golf. He cheated at golf so religiously in fact that it was mentioned in his eulogy. Bill favored method #2 above. He might have taken a gimmie here and there, and maybe improved his lie a bit, but his go-to was just to cap his score on any given hole at 7. So if he scored a 7, he’d report a 7. If he scored a snowman, that’d be a 7 too. Sticks? Another 7. For a so-so player, capping scores at 7 is not a bad play, however it sometimes looks ridiculous. The 8>7 move is one thing, but if a player takes double digits to get the ball in the cup, his group mates are going to be aware. Bill’s devotion to the 7 cap though was tough to crack because he was absolutely consistent with it and it happened so often that one’s ability to resist was worn down and wilted. Through his 7 cap and a few other measures, Bill would usually be able to shave several strokes off his score and report in the 90s, a much more respectable outcome than low 100s. Everyone knew this, but no one could or wanted to do anything about it. He was the patriarch, he was beloved, and his cheating at golf over time became part of the reason people loved him.

My aunt’s second husband Jerry though is another matter. He favored cheating method #8, which is the most egregious and infuriating by a long shot. The dude would “play to his handicap” by playing every shot straight and scoring what he scored on each hole. Then, let’s say he made a 95 overall, we would say “hey there Jerry, 95 today?” and he’d say, “nope, 84. I played to my handicap.” What did this mean? It meant that he had recorded somewhere in a database or something that his handicap, or average score, was 84. This handicap was the purported result of an aggregated average of his rounds from some earlier point in time. Now, everyone on earth understands that just because you shot an once 84 five years ago you are not guaranteed to shoot an 84 today, or ever again actually. Dr. J used to be able to soar in the air and pull off 360 dunks, and today he can barely edge the ball over the rim. Time is a bitch, and in any case you can’t just claim an 84 because of some number in a database. It’s completely absurd. However, this was his move, every time.

I would play with Jerry and my dad and bothers, and because I have a big mouth sometimes, I would push back on his 84. “Hey man, you didn’t actually take an 84 though, you took a 95. So how is it that you got an 84.” “That’s my handicap,” he’d say, “I can’t score over my handicap.” What? Can’t score over my handicap? Yeah buddy, that’s like saying I can’t weigh over 164 pounds because I weighed that once. That’s absurd. But it didn’t matter. Dude was taking the 84 regardless. After all, he made one once.

The “play to my handicap” move bears no resemblance to how professional golfers deal with their handicap of course, nor does it track with any other sport in the world to my knowledge. No basketball player after a tough loss says, “now actually we didn’t lose because although the final score had us down by 6 my scoring average is 32 and although I only scored 17 tonight, I get +15 because it’s my average so we win by 9.” That player would rightly be seen as insane. No figure skater says, “well I fell twice tonight, but I usually don’t fall, so my score goes up by 1.2” or whatever. Golfers are full of it, I guess, and can get away with this kind of nonsense around their handicap.

Looking back, although I found both methods of cheating, the 7 cap and the play to my handicap move, annoying at the time the first remains far more forgivable than the second. The 7 cap is relatable — no one wants to see those high numbers on their card, and when done with a little joie de vivre comes across as very human. The handicap move is still pretty aggravating though. It’s like the handicap player is playing some kind of intellectual game, like they think they are smarter than you or something. Jerry is not a bad golfer per se, but he’s a 95 not an 84, and just needs to deal with it.

Dedication: For Bill Kolb, a great man but a mediocre golfer.

Posted on by Matt Thomas

The Days and Nights of My 50s, Part V. 7/27/25-8/3/25. Eight Transition Days: Money, Women, My House Fails To Sell, and I Wave My Dick All Around Japan, Apparently.

Epigraphs:

Baka. You are waving your dick all around Japan. What am I going to do with you?

Litz

I wanna know girls, don’t wanna know men.

Superchunk

Roll another number for the road/ I feel able to get under any road.

Neil Young

Something’s going to happen. Something always does.

Billions

Author’s Note:

I recently fell eight days behind on this series and briefly considered abandoning the missing week altogether. Reconstructing every hour would have been impossible, and pretending otherwise would have produced eight dutiful but lifeless entries. So I have produced something different: one long, thematic account of the money, marriage, women, music, writing, travel plans, ordinary routines, and general weirdness that comes with it all.

What surprised me during the edit was that the piece had a story after all. Much of the week was spent trying to persuade banks, apps, lenders, and machines that I existed. They rejected my address, my identification, my telephone number, and at one memorable point the year 1974 altogether. Elsewhere the people who matter most came through. Sachie called me by my old name. Zach understood the central point of my marriage essay. Readers found an eight-year-old piece buried in the archive. And my son stayed on the telephone with me for nearly two hours and called me Papa. I cried The chronology fell apart. Life did not.

===== =====

I fell behind.

There is no good explanation for this. I did not deliberately fracture chronology in order to interrogate the instability of memory. I was not experimenting with form. I simply stopped keeping up. My last completed diary entry was July 26, and by the time I looked up again it was August 3. Eight days had passed, the material had multiplied, and reconstructing every morning, afternoon, evening, cigarette, loan application, woman, walk, song, meal, nap, argument, and minor technological catastrophe in order would have required another eight days.

So this is the compressed version.

Eight days. Several dozen financial institutions. More women than I can count. One marriage at its end, one house waiting to be sold, one son suddenly talking to me for nearly two hours, four packs of Camels briefly representing unimaginable wealth, and a song essay from eight years ago inexplicably climbing above Wikipedia on Google.

Chronology can take the week off.

I. Money

Money has dominated my days of late.

There are plenty of other stories—love, marriage, sex, music, family, writing—but every one of them existed beneath the same low-pressure front. Could I get downtown? Could I get back? Could I buy cigarettes? Could I put money on an my ICOCA card? Could I book a hotel, board a train, eat something other than eggs and pasta, or convert one of the many theoretical financial instruments surrounding me into actual currency?

The strange thing was that money always seemed to be coming.

A card was coming. A transfer was coming. A lender was reviewing. A bank was processing. An email was imminent. A cheque was in transit. A customer-information update had been accepted. A human being somewhere was allegedly examining at my file.

Money was everywhere except in my pocket.

I applied to ACOM, AIFUL, Seven Bank, Promise, Mobit, Resona, Sony, PayPay, Prestia, Rakuten, SBI, and enough regional banks to constitute a tour of Japan. Chiba. Fukuoka. Nagoya. Kyoto. Every fucking prefecture appeared to have a bank and every bank appeared to have designed its website specifically not to work

The applications followed a familiar pattern. First came the promise of speed.

Approval today.

Simple online procedure.

Borrow whenever you need it.

Then came the reality.

Photograph your residence card. No, not like that. Turn it slightly. Move closer. Dude move farther away. Fuck you and fuck your face.

Use better lighting. Take a selfie. Turn your head. Hold up a handwritten note. Hold up the ID beside your face. Enter the address in full-width katakana. Enter the address in half-width numbers, whatever that means. Enter your employer’s telephone number. Not that telephone number. Another. Your birthday is invalid. 1974 does not exist. Yeah right. 1974 existed because I had personally was there. Fuck you again my friend. Fuck your face while you are at it.

Yeah. OK.

At ACOM I eventually reached a human being, which seemed promising until she informed me, with a little apologetic shrug, that the AI had said no. She could not explain why. The AI had spoken. The oracle had issued its judgment. Go home. Take a shower. God knows at this point I needed one

Lake allowed me to progress through the most Byzantine application of all time before deciding I was apparently the wrong category of foreign resident. Whatever. PayPay refused to read my ID card. Rakuten could not process Ritsumeikan’s address and telephone number despite twenty attempts. JCB rejected my birthday. Really dude? Yeah really. Kyoto Bank briefly sent me into a branch-selection circle in which code 142 somehow transformed into code 566. And back. And back again. I entered 142 again. The system contemplated this information and returned me to the beginning. Fuck.

The great Acropolis of Japanese consumer finance has many staircases and no entrance. It’s like the Winchester House of something.

The worst moment came with a lender that appeared near the top of the Google search results claimed that 1 million yen already been deposited into my online wallet. 1 million yen. The wallet showed a magnificent balance. Cold hard digital cash. All I had to do was transfer it to Kyoto Bank. Great. Fucking finally.

Then came the request. Pay ten percent of the loan first. There it was.

The scam unveiled itself with all the elegance of a man opening his raincoat on a subway platform. They had invented the loan, invented the wallet, invented the balance, and now wanted real money to release the imaginary money. I closed the window. There would be no ten percent. There would be no transfer. The million yen would continue its rich fictional life without me.

Meanwhile, actual life became an exercise in microscopic accounting.

A handful of coins. A few hundred yen on one card. Perhaps twenty or thirty dollars on another.

Enough for one round trip downtown, maybe. Four packs of Camel Blues. A dozen eggs and coffee. For a few hours I was rich.

Then I was broke again.

I. My House

Behind the immediate cash crisis sat the larger financial fact of my house.

My wide and I bought it in 2007 for roughly $380,000 after she negotiated it down from about $400,000. Good work by her. The house is around 110 years old, in Sakyo Ward, two minutes from the beautiful Kamogawa river, near houses worth millions, supermarkets, restaurants, a mall, a police station, and all the ordinary conveniences that make a neighborhood viable.

It also shares a structural exterior wall with the neighboring house. This is the problem.

The wall is concrete, substantial, and old. The two houses appear to have been constructed together, and the neighbor is in his mid-nineties, assuming he is still alive. I have not seen him or his wife in years. His adult son, who once came regularly with groceries and dealt with the practical business of keeping two elderly people alive in an old house, has also disappeared from view.

The neighboring garden had gone wild. Ours is hardly Versailles, but theirs looks as though nature had filed a successful adverse-possession claim.

Could a developer demolish our house without demolishing theirs? Probably. Kyoto carpenters have dealt with harder problems than an attached wall. Would the wall reduce the number of buyers? Almost certainly. Would it make the property impossible to sell? I don’t think so. The location is good. The land is desirable. Experienced builders know how to solve structural problems when the numbers make sense.

Still, the wall remains, silent, forbidding, concrete, holding up both houses and complicating our futures.

I began to do the math.

Sell for $380,000. Lose perhaps $60,000 to commissions, taxes, and associated costs. Net $320,000. Split evenly: $160,000 each.

Except it is not that simple.

I have paid the entire mortgage since 2007. I have paid the utilities, the internet, three cell-phone bills over twenty years, appliances, most of the groceries, much of Daisy’s food, and well over $400,000 for Hugh’s education from kindergarten through university. The house is in my name.

I could build a case in my head. I did build a case. I built it for hours.

But marriage is not a civil trial conducted by a man lying naked in bed with green tea, four packs of Camels, and a calculator.

A few weeks, after thinking about it for a while, I told Sachie I would give her half. She said she wanted nothing. I suggested $50,000, and she agreed.

This was the last conversation on the matter, about three weeks ago.

The ethical question is not whether I can prove that I have paid more. I have. The question is what I want the final act of a twenty-seven year marriage to look like.

For now, the answer is simple: honor our most recent agreement. Figure out what the house is actually worth. Sell the house. Divide whatever money comes in money.

There will be time enough to decide when the wall, the buyer, the agent, the taxes, and the actual sale price stop being theoretical and finally become real.

II. Sachie, Marriage, and the End of an Era

The financial accounting and the emotional accounting were different books.

This became clear while I was writing On Meeting My Wife Sachie, the first piece of a planned longer series about the marriage and divorce. I wanted to begin at the beginning because the end may be overshadow everything that came before it. Sachie is not merely the woman leaving our house, refusing the proceeds from the sale, arguing over our garden, or moving back toward her parents.

She was once a young woman whom I loved. I was once a young man she loved. The line Zach later singled out was: This essay belongs to two young people on the cusp of life. That is the heart of it.

And now she is my ex-wife, a fact I find both funny and sad in equal measure.

Before resentment, accounting, separation, and twenty-five years of accumulated evidence for the prosecution, there were two people at the beginning of something. I want to give those people their due.

During these last eight days, we argued. We negotiated. She gave me ¥3,000, then another ¥3,000. She bought coffee filters but not bread or butter. She handled a cheque in a way I initially found incomprehensibly complex. I cursed, breathed in, calmed down. I listened to her explanation, and realized she was not intentionally trying to be difficult. She is just outta control.

Sachie is preparing to leave for Kumamoto in two weeks. Boxes accumulate. The house begins to feel less like a home than a staging area. We discuss bills, the garden, Daisy, our son, money owed, money promised, and who would keep which possessions.

There are moments of old intimacy in the language. I recently started calling her Sachan again. She calls me Machan. For just a minute we are back in 1997. It feels great. But it will not last.

Last week there was another earthquake in Kumamoto where my wife’s parents live. They were safe after the earthquake, and when I heard I felt a rush of relief. Her father Tetsuo is ninety-one and her mother Kazuko is ninety. I have known them for decades. Whatever has happened between Sachie and me, Kazuko still loves me. I love her too.

And I will probably never see her again. This is sad. Divorce does not merely separate two people. It closes a a whole chapter.

There are roads you no longer travel, houses you no longer own, nicknames you no longer use, relatives who become former relatives. Sometimes nothing dramatic happens. A door closes quietly, and one day you realize the entire geography of your life is now somewhere else

Still, Sachie and I talk. We make practical arrangements. We lend each other small amounts of money. We love the same child and the same dog. We can, at the best of times anyway, remind ourselves that neither of us is the villain of the piece.

The villain is time. As usual.

III. Hugh

Yesterday Hugh called. We spoke for an hour and fifty-three minutes.

This was almost certainly the longest telephone conversation we had ever had, and perhaps the longest uninterrupted conversation of its kind in years. Usually Hugh has ten minutes, twenty if I am lucky. He juggles work, plans, friends, screens, trains, a life. I am busy too. This time he had nearly two hours because he had just quit his soccer influencer job

On the phone he told me that was done.

He still likes football. He just does not want to spend sixteen hours a day editing football videos anymore. He had reached the same point with editing that I have reached with teaching: not dislike exactly, more like completion. That chapter has delivered everything it was going to deliver. It is now closed.

He had been doing most of the work while someone else took took a higher percentage. He agreed to this. Tolerated it for a while. But no more.

I told him I understood. And I did.

He is already freelancing, DJing trip-hop and electronic music, building something that is actually his. He is planning to move to Tokyo and eventually to buy a house. He casually told me he has saved about $50,000.

Fifty thousand dollars. At twenty-two. I have spent the last week trying to extract enough money from the Japanese banking system to buy a few packs of cigarettes and get downtown. My son had quietly assembled a down payment. I am so damn proud of him.

He told me he would come home tomorrow to pick up Daisy and keep her for a month or so while Sachie gets settled in Kumamoto. Later he told me he couldn’t come after all.

Typical. Hugh is a wonderful young man but he cannot keep a schedule for the life of him. Oh well. That’s just Hugh I guess.

Before that he said something that broke me open. He said in the next month he would bring Daisy back by a few times.

Just a day trip. A small kindness. An adult son anticipating the emotional needs of his father without being asked.

“You’re the man,” I told him.

“I love you, Papa,” he said.

“I love you too.”

There it was. The emotional center of the week.

Not the loans. Not Pattaya. Not the women, the house, Google, or the endless packs of cigarettes.

A son on the phone. One call. Two hours. My only son. Fuck.

We talked about Wise. I have an account somewhere but can not remember the password, naturally. He said he would refer me, earn a small bonus, and help me set up another path for my money.

We talked as two adults. Feels great.

I remember the boy, of course. Fathers always do. But the person on the phone is not a boy. He is a young a man, making decisions, leaving a job he no longer wants to do, moving to Tokyo, saving money, taking responsibility for Daisy, making time for me, building a life. What a deal..

IV. Women, Dating, and Sex

These last days there have been many women. Many many women. I find this pretty remarkable.

This is not a boast so much as a statement of fact. The apps multiply: Sugo, Tinder, Tapple, Thai Friendly, OkMeet, French sites with competent translation, text-only sex sites, and others whose names I forget. Free sites, cheap sites, sites that cost an arm and a leg. I started to develop lists. The Thailand list alone has maybe sixty names. More women than I could possibly meet. Tokyo has another half dozen. I began scheduling women the way a conference organizer schedules panels, except the conference was in Pattaya and the keynote address was sex.

At the center of all this chaos remains Litz.

Litz is real in the way the some of the others are not. Although no longer a couple, Litz and I still talk several times a day and text all the time. She knows my jokes, the invented women, her fake rivals Cindy and Julie. I tell her that Cindy is in bed with me and Julie is waiting her turn. She responds as though this ridiculous betrayal required serious adjudication. She says “baka you are waving your dick all over Japan. What am I going to do with you?” She is super funny. She is also, as many women are, totally outta control. Many men, myself included, are outta control too, however it is my experience that women are just that little bit extra outta control. For some reason.

Then there was Yua who I met online about a week ago. She has spent most of the last week, several hours a day, attempting to obtain a ¥5,000 Apple gift card, later negotiating it down to ¥3,000 so she could supposedly keep her “siblings” occupied with video games while she comes over for sex. She is 28. How young could her siblings be? I do not believe they exist at all, and are in fact just an elaborate cover for this increasing bizarre and tendential scheme of hers to fleece me for 50 bucks. For a solid week. Outta control.

Her commitment to the bit is almost admirable. Day after day she returns to the same small objective with the determination of a director of an intelligence service. Five thousand yen. Three thousand yen. Whatever I can afford. Baby what?

I began to admire the sheer disproportion between effort and reward. Either she liked me on some level, or she is perpetrating the least efficient scam in history. No rational person works six days for a ¥3,000 gift card. Yua, therefore, is not rational.

I thought of the Poison song Every Rose Has Its Thorn. Over time I have found this to be true. In this case, I reflected, every Yua has its thorn. And she is a thorny one that’s for sure. And yet I still talk to her. Go figure. I guess I am just weak this way.

Clara said she would come over from Osaka She got dressed. Maybe. She prepared. Perhaps. She vanished. Maybe she is real. Maybe she is not. Maybe she is a ghost. Maybe somewhere in Kyoto a beautiful woman is wandering around looking for me. God speed baby.

The two Lisas occupy separate jurisdictions.

One is the Yubari melon chick from Tokyo, beautiful enough that I continue to entertain her somewhat extravagant request for two extraordinarily expensive melons. I find this almost respectable compared with Yua’s ridiculous Apple gift cards. She is also extremely cute with her melons and all. At least Yubari melon exist.

Two melons for love. There are worse dowries.

The other Lisa lives in Amsterdam and floats somewhere in the broader international cloud of flirtation and scheduling.

Masha is my little Turkish bird. She communicates in stickers, goddesses, magic, feathers, and strange little fantasies. She asked for relatively small digital gifts and remains charming enough that I kept allowing for her many eccentricities. She is, of course, totally outta control. She could be an AI, a woman using AI, a woman pretending to be a bird, or an actual bird with excellent English. She could be anything really.

Then there are the many “UN nurses” imporbably stationed in combat zones. Three in five days. Donbas. Yemen. The Ukraine. Refugees. Humanitarian missions. Canadian surgeons wearing scrubs. Major Aaron. Whatever baby. You are a scammer and I don’t believe a single word you say. Oh well. Just one of the hazards of modern online dating I guess. Seen it all before. Bin.

Meanwhile Good Old Mr. Wank (oh yeah baby you know exactly who I mean) has remained the most dependable member of the cast.

He requires no gift cards, no airfare, no melons, no hotels, no flirtation, and never fails to appear when summoned. Mr. Wank rules.

Underneath this baroque carnival lies deep loneliness. I sometimes feel that sex is barely the point anymore. All I really want is to lie beside a woman, kiss her goodnight, and hold her until she falls asleep. Eventually I will sleep. If I’m lucky. That’s just the way things go as a lifelong night owl.

I love women.

V. My Writing

My writing this last week has been interesting.

My new daily series has begun to find readers. The first entry remains the leader among the new pieces. The essays on Litz and Sachie are about tied. My bisexuality piece is trailing a bit, which surprises me. Can’t always predict these things I guess.

Then my Dylan Thomas essay exploded.

The essay is eight years old, and I had redated and reposted it in 2024. For years the reliable traffic leaders at Kyoto Kibbitzer have been my Kris Kristofferson essay, Trump Gemini Dream, and my Razzlekhan essay.

Then, about six weeks earlier, On the Song “Dylan Thomas” and Comments on Rhyme began climbing. And climbing.

No campaign on my part. No new angle. No obvious news hook. It simply rose beyond all expectations.

In thirty days it received hundreds of views, blowing past every other piece on my site. I searched the eassy title and found it above Genius.com, radio stations, videos, and—amazingly—Wikipedia. Amazing. Dude what is going on? Something.

The piece still holds up. It examins the song’s clever AABCCB rhyme scheme, its near-rhymes, and its general alternation between political anxiety and private hedonism. “Corset” and “Corvette.” The general and the king. Dylan Thomas dying on the barroom floor. A shower at the Bates Motel. The world collapsing while the narrators search for another drink. It is a great song and I am happy the essay is doing so well.

The success of Dylan Thomas sent me back into the archive. I reposted My Brother Mike’s Bad Book, the Mariners story in which Mike, drunk and rowdy but morally precise, heard someone defending a man shouting gay slurs and replied with four perfect words:

“That’s a bad book.”

I fuckin’ love my brother Mike.

The Razzlekhan essay disappeared from Word Press recently. I have no idea why. Something. I found a copy on Medium where I used to cross-post many of my pieces. I copied it into Word Press and republished it. Thank god.

Zach sent me a thoughtful note about my essay about meeting my wife. He understood piece immediately, especially the line about two young people on the cusp of life. He invited me to English Mass and told me he had begun a new essay called A Summer Day. I would be traveling, so I declined the Mass, but I am glad he is writing again. He is an excellent writer,

The archive was not dead. It had merely been in hibernation.

VI. Summer

Summer currently exists in the future tense.

Tokyo. Bangkok Pattaya. Hydra. Athens. The Czech Republic. Busan. New York, briefly, before its hotel prices restored sanity. Yeah right. I wish.

Every destination seems possible. None are booked.

I will go to Bangkok, Pattaya, and Hydra as soon as my money kicks in.

Get high as blazes. drink Pina Coladas on the beach, wear my sunnies, try to avoid a sunburn, rail women for days, spend too much money, get laid. Thank god. What a life man. What a life.

Pattaya is going to be outta control. Lovely Harmony for three nights. Matteneee for another. Jenny on my last night in town. Jenny and Matteneee are both escorts. I asked them both if we could have anal sex and if they were on birth control so I could cum inside them. They both said yes. Condoms are a necessarily evil but do suck. Hard.

Bar girls, freelancers, the beach, weed, fruity drinks with umbrellas, swimming pools. All the metier of a recently divorced middle aged man going through a soft mid-life crisis. I make absolutely no apologies for any of this. It is what it is. Life goes on.

VII. Music

Music did not sit beneath the week. It carried it.

The Grateful Dead on my long walk into town: Catfish John, Must Have Been the Roses, and Black Muddy River. Jerry rules like no other. God does he rule.

Neil Young arrived.

Unknown Legend, Crime in the City, Cortez the Killer, Thrasher, Albuquerque with the great Mark Kozelek cover, Roll Another Number for the road. Songs became routes through the day, places to stand while everything else moved.

David Lowery’s Fathers, Sons and Brothers showed up and kicked ass, predictably. He rules too. He rules beyond all things. God I love David.

Then came the Drive-By Truckers/ Jason Isbell Patterson Hood song draft with my friend chat. I love to draft with chat, although he is and remains a big fat nabber. Oh well. It is still great fun.

We left Cover Me Up off the board, which was either courageous or simply malpractice.

Our list included “Dress Blues,” “Relatively Easy,” “Outfit,” “Birthday Boy,” “Speed Trap Town,” “The Day John Henry Died,” “Goddamn Lonely Love,” “Elephant,” “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac,” “The Righteous Path,” “Buford Stick,” “Decoration Day,” “Children of Children,” “Alabama Pines,” “Codeine,” and “Super 8.”

“Super 8” nearly broke the whole draft open:

Don’t wanna die in a Super 8 motel/ just because somebody’s evening didn’t go so well.

COME ON dude. Jesus Jason. Easy buddy.

Their combined catalog is not merely Southern rock. It is a curriculum in adulthood: fathers, sons, dead friends, drinking, divorce, work, small towns, the left behind, bad decisions, dignity, memory, hope, and the impossible notion of getting another chance after you have already used several.

Patterson Hood writes the people history forgets. Jason Isbell writes the ones who survive themselves. Mike Cooley walks in every third song, drops a perfect line, and checks out to hit the bar. The band simply rules. They all do.

I reflected on minor musical questions. Is Lucinda Willaims’ cover of Tom Petty’s Southern Accents better than the original. It’s tough but I think so. I listened several times to The Pixies absolutely shredding on Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Head On.” I put on Phosphorescent’s glorious cover of Corpus Christi Bay. Seam covering Breaking Circus’ Driving the Dynamite Truck. Nobody remembers Breaking Circus today. Nobody. Their version of Dynamite is marred by typical crappy 80s production which the Seam version cleans up. Whoever happened to these guys? No one knows. They are simply lost to the sounds of time, as we all will be one day.

The Mountain Goats have a new album coming out in just two days. Ryan Adams has a new one too that I am getting into.

Music is the best, and the world remained blessedly worth living in because of it.

VIII. Ordinary Days

Between the financial drama, romantic sub plots, and musical drafts, and my increasingly outta control mother my days slid by as usual.

Coffee. Green tea. Cigarettes on the balcony. Lying naked in bed half the day my PC propped up on my knees, writing. My buggy AC. Two fans on high. Porn. Phone calls. Existential angst. Sleep.

The second floor landing off the stairs remains a death trap. I toss laundry and dishes there and don’t dare step on the wooden boards lest I fall to my death. I am not remotely joking. From an actuarial perspective, the landing remains the most likely way for me to meet my final demise. I should take out insurance.

The area beside the bed improved. I removed most of the chocolate wrappers, cigarette packs, bottles, and general archaeological evidence of recent life. Beneath this material my residence card remained missing. Fuck.

A dozen voice-recording apps failed in different ways. I rely on text-to-speech apps for my writing and most of them suck. Of course. I finally found one that works well enough. They want $11.99 per year. No brainer.

I sleep in short blocks: an hour, two, four max. I woke, drank water, urinate off the balcony, smoke and do it all over again. It is, as the Feelies say, only life after all.

My body complains. Knees. Back. Ribs. Balls. My eyeballs burn from the cigarette smoke.

Sunburn across my stomach and shoulders after my five-mile walk beside the river in the sun. I look like a lobster. Oh well. It will pass,

I take several painkillers a day, trying to stay on dose, Why? No reason really. Just everything fucking hurts. I’m 52. What are you gonna do?

I’ve been slowly sipping a bottle of Napoleon Brandy for two weeks. It is too warm and I keep forgetting to get ice for it. Of course. I am just out it these days I guess.

My bicycle still scares me a little half a year after my winter crash. The roads are dry now, the heat intense, no ice to be seen, but my body remembered the crash. I remain skittish.

IX. Comedy

Life, among other things. is invariably funny.

Rainbolt, the GeoGuessr madman, who sees one sepia utility pole for half aa second along wth a patch of Polish grass, and calmly and corrently announces that we are twenty-two and a half miles west of Kraków. Make it make sense.You cannot. Rainbolt is just outta control. He’s some kind of savant I guess.

I want to re-watch the Joan Rivers documentary “Piece of Work” but I keep putting it off. Joan is hysterical. RIP to a real one.

Randy Quaid remains generally Randy Quaid. Obviously. He is insane. He just is. Dude the CIA gets up to some shit sure, but they are not in fact bugging your mind from an implant somehow magically implanted in your tooth.This is not a thing my friend. It is just not. Get a life. You’re outta control.

I remember Will Smith fucking slapping the shit outta Chris Rock at the Oscars over a totally tame G.I. Jane joke and then returning to his seat as though live global television had briefly become his living room. What a bizarre more. Will what are you doing my friend? Unbelievable.

Christian Dreyer sent a minimalist cartoon of two people in a car approaching an enormous fork lying across the road.

“It’s lunchtime!”

Totally bizarre. Dreyer is weird. No notes.

My mind drifted for some reason to the 70’s. TV shows like The Newlywed Game, The Love Boat, and The Dating Game, where an actual serial killer once appeared as a contestant, won the date, and was rejected afterward because the woman found him creepy. I was too young to watch these shows, however I am aware of them through the zeitgeist. Outta control.

The JonBenét Ramsey ransom note remains one of the strangest documents in American criminal history. The parents ate guilt as sin. They just are. It is a fact.

The alleged Trump Moscow hotel pee tape on the other hand remains unproven, although a remarkably well put together fake video circulated a few years ago because someone, somewhere, for some unknown reason, invested real time and effort into manufacturing the world’s most notorious and probably nonexistent pee video. Why? Reasons of their own. We will never know.

I began an essay called Was Donald Trump Peed On in Moscow? The likely conclusion: I do not know. Neither do you. That is the point, This does not prevent anyone from having absolute confidence one way or the other. Whatever dude. It was years ago. It’s just a little pee. So what? Let’s move on.

===== =====

Overall it has been a funny week. Then there was the Japanese loan interface informing me that 1974 never existed. Yeah right guy. Get a grip.

Then the three “UN nurses” purportedly in combat zones. Come on lady. You are a big fat clip-jointer. You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it. Get over yourself. Get.a real job lady. Sit this one out.

Yua’s six-day campaign for ¥3,000.

The price of two Yubari melons standing between me and love.

The phrase “crap on a cross,” followed by the reasonable question of how the crap actually got up there.

This was life, basically.

Outta control.

X. Eight Transition Days

This last week did not really resolve. That is the fact.

No big loan arrived. The house did not sell. Sachie had not yet moved out. Thailand is somewhere down the line. Greece too. I cannot wait to hit the road again. I love to travel. I just do.

But something has shifted.

The archive woke up. The Sachie and Litz essays are doing well. The dailies are off to a good start. My son called. It is too hot. My AC doesn’t work. Damn.

That was the week.

Everything else—the lenders, women, cards, trains, cigarettes, apps, travel sites, melons, war-zone nurses, Greek islands, shared walls, Google rankings, impossible birthdays, all the rest—spin around this fact.

Something’s gonna happen.

It always does.

Dedication:

For Litz. You can take this D anytime you like baby.

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The Genius Razzlekhan and the Phony Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I went home with the waitress/ the way I always do/ how was I to know/ she was with the Russians too.

Warren Zevon

Author’s Note:

Some essays begin with a thesis. This one began with me laughing so hard I nearly fell out of my chair.

When Heather Morgan—better known as Razzlekhan—was accused of participating in what was then described as the largest cryptocurrency heist in history, nearly every media outlet converged on the same joke: look how terrible her rap videos are. I saw something different. Behind all the memes was someone making deeply strange, completely sincere outsider art. Whether you think it’s brilliant, awful, or somehow both at once, there is no mistaking its originality. I have always had a soft spot for artists who refuse to color inside the lines.

The surprise, though, was Nicholas Nassim Taleb. He wandered into the story for reasons best known to himself and, in my opinion, emerged looking far sillier than the alleged crypto queen ever did. Years later I still think the real story wasn’t the memes. It was how quickly the internet decided who deserved ridicule—and how often it picked the wrong target. Razzlekhan may have been the weirdest person in the room, but weird has never bothered me. Poseurs always have. This is their story.

===== =====

This is the saga of the queen of crypto hacking Heather Morgan, aka Razzlekhan, and the shameless tail chaser and phony public intellectual (is there any other kind) Nicholas Nassim Taleb. Just so we are clear about who is who here, Taleb, the bestselling author “The Black Swan” and “Antifragile” is the villain, and Morgan, who along with her husband is accused of pulling off the largest heist in human history ($4.5 billion dollars) is the heroine. Morgan was briefly a Twitter star in late February 2022 when her alleged crimes were revealed; however her stardom was not based on her hacking prowess, but rather on what was perceived (incorrectly) to be her world-historically awful rap videos, including, but not limited, her banger “Versace Bedouin,” in which, among other things, she names herself “the crocodile of Wall Street.” Here is a taste of her work (note that the real Heather Morgan appears to be in her early 30’s, and is certainly not a grandmother. Also, the video depicts Morgan rapping around the Wall Street district of New York City with three women “dancing” behind her, one wearing large green gardening gloves and carrying a flag with a design we are unable to clearly see for the entire video):

Razzlekhan’s the name/ the hot grandma you really wanna bang/ always run the gilf game/ ever since I was fif-taneee

I’m many things/ a rapper, an economist, a journalist, a writer, a CEO/ and a dirty dirty dirty dirty ho

Better than most writers/ creepier than most girls/ weirder than most rappers/ but I still rock pearls.

Alert listeners will note the apparent Liz Phair reference to Razz’s sexual maneuvering in her teens, suggesting that there may be at least a little guile to her lyrics. But what impresses me (and I’ll just state this right out-I think Razzlekhan is a misunderstood genius) is the straight ahead sincerity of the lyrics. I mean Versace Bedouin was released before Morgan was implicated in the crypto hack and here is her dedication at the top of the song:

Never forget, weirdest is the most original/ this song is for the entrepreneurs and hackers/ all the misfits and smart slackers.

The really hardcore music fan may pick up a possible Drugstore reference from “Say Hello”:

I say hello/ to all the junkies/ the sinners and the creeps/ I say hello to all the people in this place/ I say hello /to all the drug heads/ the prostitutes and freaks/ I say hello/ to all the people in the world!

But even I don’t think Morgan is a Drugstore fan, so the resemblance is most likely coincidental. What I love about Razz’s work here is that Versace Bedouin is a simple and totally sincere statement of intent. She tells the listener exactly who she is and what she’s about. She’s a weirdo and misfit, a hacker, a probable criminal, a business owner, and a dirty ho, and she is just letting the world know. She is, as the kids say, putting the motherfucking world on blast. Razzlekhan is coming for your bitcoin, baby, lock that shit down.

And the media loved it. The Guardian wrote a long (and pretty helpful) article on Morgan with the lead “Is this the new face of organized crime? Decoding Razzlekhan, the rapping bitcoin fraudster.”

“Who is this Bitcoin crime queen” they write breathlessly “and what does she tell us about the future of organized crime?” Well Mr. Guardian, that’s a good question that maybe I can shed some light on. Morgan and her husband (who, like the rest of the uncaring world didn’t care for her rap career-Heather I’m here for you man, just reach out) stole the money, allegedly, from the platform Bitfinix but were unable to convert much of into cash or liquid assets and had to settle for Walmart gift cards instead. So that might tell you something-I’m not sure how organized the pair was.

Mr. Guardian again:

“It is hard to articulate how it feels to be alive in an age of massive wealth disparity and multiple deregulatory lines of questionable crypto minting, but I think watching an alleged Bitcoin embezzler struggle through painful rap bars in a flat-billed cap that reads ‘0FCKS’ is a good summation of the overwhelming confusion.”

But it really isn’t hard to articulate at all-it feels great, because while Heather Morgan the journalist, CEO, and dirty ho may be facing a little legal trouble, Razzlekhan the artist, in my opinion, stands unbloodied and unbowed atop the pinnacle of outsider art along with Daniel Johnston, Mayo Thompson, and the handful of other transcendent geniuses so far ahead of their time they were subject to as much ridicule as they were celebration.

(My favorite piece of music criticism ever comes from a Pitchfork review which doesn’t seem to be online anymore of The Red Krayola’s 1989 album malefactor, ade-it must have been a re-release because Pitchfork wasn’t around in ’89 of course-where the critic accuses Mayo Thompson of “playing the guitar badly, on purpose.” And it’s pretty true. The Red Krayola is out there.)

Razz herself embraces the outsider role and speaks directly to her artistic origins and sensibilities in her artistic biography:

Razzlekhan is like Genghis Khan, but with more pizzazz… No one knows for sure where this rapper’s from — could be the North African desert, the jungles of Vietnam, or another universe. All that matters is she’s here to stick up for misfits and underdogs everywhere (…) Because Razz has synesthesia, her art often resembles something in between an acid trip and a delightful nightmare. Definitely not for the faint of heart or easily offended, Razz likes to push the limits of what people are comfortable with. Her style has often been described as “sexy horror-comedy,” because of her fondness for combining dark and disturbing concepts with dirty jokes and gestures. Just like her fearless entrepreneurial spirit and hacker mindset, Razz shamelessly explores new frontiers of art, pushing the limit of what’s possible. Whether that leads to something wonderful or terrible is unclear; the only thing that’s certain is it won’t be boring or mediocre.

To my knowledge, no major media outlet even gave Razzlekhan a fighting chance; however I invite you to read the above self-description again with care. She is not in the least bit joking around. She identifies variously as a Bedouin, Turkish, a nomad, and an alien. Later in the same piece she identifies her influences as: Die Antwoord, Tierra Whack, Mickey Avalon, Salvador Dali, Diane Arbus, Hunter S. Thompson, Roald Dahl, and Charles Bukowski. This is a consistent, real, list of artists that a true outsider might well identify with. At the Razzlekhan level, the distance between greatness and awfulness is razor thin, artistic merit being, like everything else really, a circle not a line. In any case, judge for yourself — pull up a Razzlekhan video on You Tube (they are still there) and see what you think.

But what does any of this have to do with the author Nicholas Nassim Taleb? Well, it would have had nothing to do with him if our boy hadn’t chosen, with exquisitely poor judgment, to interject himself into the Heather Morgan/ Razzlekhan drama. Within hours of the heist news breaking, Mr. Taleb posted the following:

I have several things to say about this nonsense:

I. Check his use of “Attention” and the scare word “vulnerability.” Taleb thinks this message is super important and even urgent. He’s got to get it out there RIGHT NOW.

II. The story is obviously total BS. Taleb seems to have no sense of how Twitter works, and his narrative is so bizarre that he is basically begging us to roast him, which users in the hundreds did, of course.

III. Taleb gives no insight into why Morgan was DMing him. What did she want? Well, users, myself included, had a theory as to what might actually have occurred here. Occam’s Razor would suggest that at some point Morgan and Taleb began exchanging DMs, possibly on her initiative, as she was writing extensively for Business Insider and Forbes I believe, and maybe she wanted to ask Taleb something about one of his books. Taleb then pivoted into a bit of tail chasing, or, as one Twitter denizen put it slightly less crudely, he was looking for a little “bobs and vagine.” When Morgan was arrested, Taleb got spooked that somehow their DMs would leak, so he concocted a ridiculous cover story almost (but not quite) as stupid and unbelievable as Joy Reid’s claim that her fifteen year old blog with homophobic jokes and comments was hacked by Russians.

IV. The use of “some more recently” is a pure “tell.” Taleb’s bobs and vagineing has been going on for some time, it seems. But why in the world would Taleb think that the messages would leak just because Morgan was arrested (she was later released and her husband was held in custody, and I haven’t been able to get a status update on where she is today)? I mean there are really only two options: i) that the messages would be released by the FBI or something as pertinent to the case, in which case Taleb and Morgan would have been discussing her hacking. This seems highly unlikely; ii) Morgan would choose to release them herself in an effort to incriminate Taleb. But Nicholas baby, this is just not going to be a priority for Morgan after her arrest. I mean, she is accused of stealing 4.5 billion, and she’s got her rap career, and her husband is in prison. She has got stuff going on man; your DMs are way down the list.

All and all, this message shows that Taleb is an idiot and a complete joke. And people took note, including Edward Snowden, piping up from Russia. Check this out:

Snowden comes in with the savage take down here, and Taleb punches back with an offer to debate, what exactly? It’s not clear if this the debate challenge was issued prior by Taleb nor is it clear, at least to me, what is to be debated. Are they supposed to talk medical issues? Mental health? Hacking? Bobs and vagine? Taleb continues to make no sense, and Snowden let’s him know with another zinger:

Main Character Syndrome indeed. I would add Major Asshat Syndrome and Big Phony Fraud and Fragile Loser Syndrome as well. Because this is the guy who wrote Antifragile! Which is supposed to be about things that thrive during chaos, or in other words, things which are resilient. And nothing says resilient like faking a hacking narrative to cover your tail chasing, issuing an incomprehensible debate challenge to someone way out of your league, and tripling down with blocking random twitter users who question you. And I would know, because after I liked the bobs and vagine comment and added something like “Methinks Mr. Taleb doth protest too much,” the fucker blocked me too! Sadly that Twitter account is history so I can’t post a screenshot, however it was obvious that this huge baby was scrolling chats and mass blocking to distract from his disastrous piece of public relations. Honestly, the whole thing was super funny and Taleb showed his ass in the worst possible way.

Taleb obviously thinks he is hotshit. Check out his Twitter bio.

What a poser. A flaneur is a French term for someone who walks the streets taking things in, and Walter Benjamin wrote extensively about the flaneur in his epic, and epically unfinished “Arcades Project.” Actually, a flaneur is a lot like a kibitzer. I am the Kyotokibbitzer (two b’s baby), and I love Benjamin’s work, including the Arcades Project. I bet Taleb is aware of Benjamin and fancies himself a fan. But he doesn’t know the first thing about Benjamin, because Benjamin was a humble guy who did great work and Taleb is a braggart, a tail chaser, and a bum. Deadlifts and dead languages my ass. Text is dead there Nicholas, at least your texts are, because you made a complete fool of yourself and you suck. Taleb exemplifies precisely why I dislike anyone who calls themselves a public intellectual or an expert. He is a poser and I’ll bet you 10 to 1 his ideas are stolen just like Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s, another total loser who piggybacks on people who know something to pump up his image. (A sure sign of a loser is a “public intellectual” who insists on using three names. What’s wrong with Nicholas Taleb or Neil Tyson? The only people who need three names are serial killers; I mean even public intellectual number one Malcolm Gladwell only uses two names. Gladwell is known to pilfer ideas as well, but The Tipping Point is a pretty good read and the dude genuinely knows a tremendous amount about the sport of running. And he doesn’t call himself “Malcolm Julius Gladwell” or whatever. This is because he’s just a writer and knows that using his middle name would make him a prat.) Anyway, it’s totally fine to fake it ’til you make it, and most of us do to a greater or lesser degree, but you can’t fake your way into being an expert. Never trust “experts,” full stop.

So that’s the story of Razzlehan, the misunderstood genius, and Nicholas Taleb, the big phony. And in case you are asking, yes I did ask Razz to get in touch with me above. I’d say “I can fix her,” but she needs no fixing. She can DM me all she wants, and she doesn’t even have to get the Russians involved.

Dedication:

For Razz. You rule baby. So damn hard.

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On the Song “Dylan Thomas” and Comments on Ryhme

Author’s Note:

This essay is now eight years old, and I honestly have no idea what happened.

For years the traffic champions around here were predictable: my Kris Kristofferson essay, Trump’s Gemini Dream, and the piece on Razzlekhan all traded places at the top of the charts. Then, about six weeks ago, this old essay on a Better Oblivion Community Center song simply… took off. No promotion. No rewrite. No obvious reason. Somehow it climbed past everything else on the site and, at least for many searches, now even appears ahead of Wikipedia and the major lyric sites for “Dylan Thomas.” I remain completely mystified by it.

I’m certainly not complaining. This piece has always been one of my favorites because it isn’t really a review at all. It’s an excuse to talk about rhyme, structure, near-rhymes, politics, hedonism, Dylan Thomas, Paul Westerberg, Conor Oberst, Phoebe Bridgers, and why some songs continue revealing themselves long after you’ve memorized every word. Eight years later I’m still hearing new things in it—and apparently, somehow, so are a surprising number of other people. I’ll happily take the mystery.

=====

This post is about the song “Dylan Thomas” from the first Better Oblivion Community Center record. For the uninitiated (which is probably everyone reading this–recently a friend texted me a funny article from The Onion entitled “Study: No Two People Have Listened To Same Band Since 2003”), Better Oblivion Community Center is Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers. “Dylan Thomas” is the single, if singles still existed. You still won’t know them.

I want to write about the song because it has a killer structure and is awesome. The structure is based around a neat rhyme scheme with fabulous use of “near rhymes” and also around a see-saw in the verses between fairly pointed political commentary and apolitical hedonism. As with all interpretation, I can’t be sure that what I hear was intended, but what the hell–communication is what the listener does after all.

Now, a lot of songs, most, rhyme. That’s obvious. But not too many songs really hold up on the page as well, as poetry. I think “Dylan Thomas” does and I’d like to explore why.

Verse I:

It was quite early one morning/ hit me without warning/ I went to hear the general speak/ I was standing for the anthem/ banners all around him/ confetti made it hard to see

So the first verse clearly alludes to our political moment–it appears politically engaged to some extent. The reference to “the general” is redolent of South American politics (I am reminded of the fabulous Drugstore song “El President”). The rhyme scheme is tricky–it’s AABCC(D), where (d) “see” almost rhymes with “speak” in the delivery although the words don’t actually rhyme, instead being only vaguely alliterative.

Verse II:

Put my footsteps on the pavement/ starved for entertainment/ four seasons of revolving doors/ so sick of being honest/ I’ll die like Dylan Thomas/ a seizure on the bathroom floor

Verse II sees a clear shift from the political to the personal, the hedonistic, the depraved. While Thomas is famous for his “rage against the dying of the light,” Better Oblivion taps the seedier side of Thomas’ legacy–the singers (most of the songs on the album including “Dylan Thomas” are duets) in verse II are seeking pleasure and there is no hint of the macro picture here. So, verse I=macro, verse II=micro.

The rhyme scheme shifts to AABCCB, with a definite rhyme between “doors” and “floor.” “Entertainment” and “pavement” I would consider near-rhymes, and the slightly off-kilter near-rhymes are for me what really make this song stand out as a piece of writing.

Chorus:

I’m getting greedy with this private hell/ I’ll go it alone, but that’s just as well

Hard to say exactly what “this private hell” refers to, however we get a sense of doubling down on the dissolute–in for a penny in for a pound as they say.

Verse III:

These cats are scared and feral/ the flag pins on their lapels/ the truth is anybody’s guess/ these talking heads are saying/ “The king is only playing/ a game of four dimensional chess”

Verse III is clearly political again, setting up a 1 for 1 see-saw (so far). “Cats” here cuts both ways–on the one hand “people” with flag pins in the era of truthiness, on the other, well real cats are feral. It’s a very clever, subtle move. Is the general from verse I the king from verse III? Probably. We live in an era where world leaders are not in the business of leading, but rather of playing elaborate, endless games.

The rhyme scheme here is a AABCCB where the second C and the second B are part of a single quote. Very nicely done.

Verse IV:

There’s flowers in the rubble/ the weeds are gonna tumble/ I’m lucid but I still can’t think/ I’m strapped into a corset/ climbed into your corvette/ I’m thirsty for another drink

This is where the song really comes into its own as a mini-masterpiece. On its own, this verse is nakedly apolitical and local–I am reminded of one of my favorite lines of all time from the final Replacements album. The song is “Someone Take the Wheel” and the line goes: “they’re fighting again in some fuckin’ land/ ah throw in another tape man.”

In 1990, Paul Westerberg didn’t give a shit about the Iraq War and wanted nothing more than to listen to music on the road. That’s an understandable point of view on the level of the human individual. What I love about what Oberst and Bridgers do with this song is how they alternate verses between the macro and the micro, the engaged and the depraved. The same conceit is used on the first song of the record, “Didn’t Know What I Was In For”:

I didn’t know what I was in for/ when they took my belt and strings/ they told me I’d gone crazy/ my arms are strapped in a straight jacket/ so I couldn’t save those TV refugees

I get this sentiment. Seriously I do. If we zoom out a bit on our world situation these days, we could easily say that every person with even a patina of ethical conscience ought to be on the front lines in one way or another. And then I look at myself and…well, I chose Medicine Sans Frontiers as the charity that gets some small percentage of my Amazon purchases. Will the future see me as a head in the sand hedonist? Probably, and with some justification.

The rhyme scheme in verse IV is again a clear AABCCB with near-rhymes (probably the first time in history “corset” has been rhymed with “corvette”), in fact the same scheme as limericks. I f***ing love AABCCB. God bless it. Also, the line “I’m lucid but I still can’t think” pretty much summarizes my entire life to date.

Verse V:

If advertised, we’ll try it/ and buy some peace and quiet/ and shut up at the silent retreat/ they say you’ve gotta fake it/ at least until you make it/ that ghost is just a kid in a sheet

AABCCB again, the scheme which carries the song with the striking exception on verse I. Verse V alludes to the theme of the record–Better Oblivion Community Center is some kind of partially defined wellness retreat–and kind of splits the difference between the political and the personal, the macro and the micro. It also serves as a commentary on the commercialization of “wellness” and is a cheeky meta-comment on the cover of Bridgers 2017 debut:

Is this a shot at some critics? A self-aware reference to a DIY cover? I don’t know, and I love the line.

Following the logic of this piece, we have a kind of scheme of the verses as well. Let’s call is ABABC where A=political, B=apolitical, and C splits the difference.

Verse VI/ Outro:

I’m getting used to these dizzy spells/ I’m taking a shower at the Bates Motel/ I’m getting greedy with this private hell/ I’ll go it alone, but that’s just as well

It’s a simple AABB with the outro calling back the chorus from mid-song. The see-saw between the personal the political sort of resolves itself in the killer couplet. “I’m getting used to these dizzy spells” suggests acclimatization to the altitude–metabolization of the fear. “I’m taking a shower at the Bates Motel” is an amazingly effective counterpoint line–we are living at the knife point of maniacs. Ah well, let’s hit the bar. I’m thirsty for another drink.

Seriously, check out “Dylan Thomas” and the whole record. I know no one listens to anything I listen to, but still.

Postscript: So Mr. Spotify seems to have decided that “Dylan Thomas” is my very favorite song, and cues it up time after time after I’ve finished listening to whatever I have selected. I do love this song, by Mr. Spotify there is almost making me tired of it. Change it up there Mr. Spotify please.

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My Brother Mike’s Bad Book

Subtitle: A Mariners game, a rowdy night, and the moment my brother defined himself with four perfect words.

Author’s Note:

Some stories stay with you because of what happened. Others stay with you because of what they revealed. This one has always belonged to the second category. It started as a funny night at a Mariners game and ended as one of those moments where a person’s character becomes perfectly clear in the space of a single sentence.

I’ve written a lot over the years about family, friendship, and the people who quietly shape us. This remains one of my favorite examples. Mike has always been capable of making a room louder, funnier, and occasionally more chaotic. But beneath all of that is a remarkably reliable moral compass. Four words—“That’s a bad book.”—told me everything I already knew. I still smile every time I think about them.

Several years ago I attended a Seattle Mariners baseball game with my bother Mike. The Mariners were playing the Toronto Blue Jays, and we went out for a few drinks before the game right next to the stadium. I was amazed by just how many Blue Jays fans there were in town for the game. They were all over the place.

Now, although I grew up in a baseball family, as I got older I kind of lost interest. The games are just too long and there are too many of them. However, going to a game in person is pretty cool. Mike is still a hardcore Mariner fan, which I respect. On this night the Mariner’s star pitcher Felix Hernandez was pitching, and the Mariners won the game. However, the result is far from the most memorable aspect of that night.

Our seats were pretty good, right next to, but not actually in, the “K Zone” where the Hernandez heads were. Over the course of the first few innings, Mike downed several more beers and he got a little rowdy, as he sometimes does. Mike, in Freudian terms, has more than a little “id” in him. As I mentioned, there were a lot of Blue Jays fans in town and Mike, as a good Seattleite, took this as a challenge. As the game went on he began calling out, loudly, various Canadian cities.

“Calgary suuuucks…Winnipeg suuuucks…Lethbridge suuuucks.” Like that.

I found this all pretty amusing, if a little unorthodox. It wasn’t how I would chose to enjoy the game, but this was Mike’s style. As the Mariners built a lead Mike’s chants started to escalate, and some Blue Jays fans began to take offense. Probably this was the point. These dudes were looking at Mike, pointing, saying things. There was no real risk of a fight; however Mike was mixing it up no doubt.

Around the 5th inning or so another dude in a Shawn Kemp jersey started making noise of his own. (Shawn Kemp was a star player for the Seattle SuperSonics back in the day before some asshole stole the franchise and moved them to Oklahoma City. Fuck that guy.) At first this was all fine, because anyone in a Sonics jersey was OK with Mike. However the Sonics fan started getting a little out of line and dropping the f***** slur.

“Look at this fucking f*****. Fuck this f*****,” stuff like that.

As far as I could tell there was no reason that this guy had to target an individual in this fashion. The difference, as I saw it, between his action and Mike’s was that Mike was basically operating in good humor and calling out all the Blue Jays fans present in the spirit of friendly competition, while the Sonics fan was picking on an individual, and using a slur. Although the exact nuances of the difference are perhaps debatable, the dude was definitely out of line.

Mike noticed this guy and didn’t like what he saw. He began saying so, and someone not in our group took notice. This other guy, in regards to the Sonics fan, said something to the effect of “he’s ok in my book.” Mike didn’t miss a beat at he uttered the classic line, one I will never forget.

“That’s a bad book,” he said.

That’s all he said; he didn’t challenge the guy to a fight or anything, didn’t even directly address him. The Sonics fan was getting so abusive that someone called security, and he was escorted out.

“That’s a bad book,” reminds me of my friend from high school Cameron Turner who liked to say of something he didn’t approve “that’s sick, and wrong.” Both of these are super memorable phrases, and highly redolent of the person behind them. Mike was a little lit. Mike was razzing Blue Jays fans as a collective. Mike was attracting attention. At the same time he felt that there was no need for gratuitous gay slurs. And he was right.

One of my favorite phrases in the world is “that’s some bad action.” Mike was speaking in the same vein with “that’s a bad book.” I’ve never been prouder of anyone in my life than when Mike called this guy out.

I fuckin’ love my brother Mike.

Postscript: Just a little while ago Mike and his fiancee had a baby, Felix. Named, of course, after the pitcher. So that’s pretty cool. I just hope he doesn’t grow up to be a Blue Jays fan.

Posted on by Matt Thomas

The Days of Nights of My 50s, 7/26/26: A Minor Day

I: Morning

I woke just after 6:40 this morning with the pleasant emptiness that follows a good night’s sleep and, occasionally, good sex. The room was quiet. My head was clear. Osaka was already stirring.

I brewed a coffee in my room, then wandered downstairs for another one from Lawson, bought a bag of crisps, and smoked a few heaters.

Travel logistics, I’ve have come to realize, occupies only a fraction of my days these days. The rest is spent trying to make sense of what happened yesterday.

I opened my essay draft from last night.

“She looked like her picture…but not quite.”

Good.

“She joined me in the shower.”

Fine.

“She began to stroke my dick.”

I stared at the sentence. Technically accurate. But could I do better? Try again. The morning became less about memory than rhythm. Every sentence asked a question.

Too much? Not enough? Funny? Honest? Self-indulgent? I changed “dick” to “cock.” Then changed it to “dick” again. I have no logical explanation for this. It just felt right.

Then there was the kissing. I looked at the sentence “her tongue had been just a little aggressive.” True. Funny. Fair. It stayed.

Other things didn’t. I caught myself trying to make everything dramatic. I deleted entire paragraphs. I was making progress. Outside my window Osaka continued existing without the slightest interest in whether one sentence sounded better than another.

Inside my room, however, the fate of Western literature seemed to depend upon whether I’d written “I checked Google Maps again” or “I checked Google Maps for the tenth time.” The latter had to go. It was writerly inflation. Get it outta here.

II: Early Afternoon

Whenever I edit, my brain begins making improbable associations. One sentence reminds me of a song. The song reminds me of a film. The film reminds me of another book.

Then suddenly I’m Googling Moneyball pictures because I need a photograph of Brad Pitt smiling for my essay cover.

I put on the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Dirty Water with that one immortal line.

“Fuck with me and I’ll fuck with you/ ain’t what that were supposed to do?”

Perfect, I thought. There’s your epigraph.

By mid-morning I’d spent three hours changing words that most readers would never notice. Dick. Cock. Looked. Seemed. Perhaps. Another cigarette. More editing.

There are days when writing feels like building a cathedral. There are other days when it feels like repeatedly moving the same chair around the living room in search of the perfect angle.

=====

After lunch I finally leaned back. The piece wasn’t perfect, but it was alive.

Yesterday had begun as a train ride, become a date, drifted into sex, wandered through a convenience store at half past midnight, detoured into Zero Dark Thirty, and somehow wrapped at six thousand words.

That’s the strange alchemy of memoir. You don’t write life. You live it first. Then you spend the next morning discovering what it was actually about.

III: Late Afternoon

Whether you know it or not—if you’re even halfway interesting—you eventually become Larry King.

“Morning folks…maybe Hong Kong… maybe the weather… coffee…”

Dot dot dot. The famous Larry King ellipsis. God, I loved that.

“Mets win…”

Always the Mets.

“Mets win… rain tomorrow… baby dies… RIP… gonna take a shit… Larry out…”

Everything separated by ellipses like every thought had exactly the same emotional weight. That’s genius. USA Today probably paid him a million bucks for two tiny paragraphs. Larry transcended journalism. It was its own literary form.

Speaking of old media guys, I think this has been reported, so I’m not talking out of school. Mandiola said Larry was up against it money wise when he died. Eight marriages. Eight divorces. Totally outta control.

After sixty-five years at the pinnacle of broadcasting, CNN, the huge interviews, all of that… supposedly there wasn’t much left. You assume people who sit on top of the mountain for half a century just become permanently rich.

Apparently not.

=====

Hong Kong still sounds attractive to me. Not just because of the escorts. Honestly, I can get dumplings anywhere. But there’s something about Hong Kong. South Korea too, though prostitution isn’t really an option there. That’s okay. I’ll get on the apps when I feel like dating.

I don’t actually want another marriage. I thought I did with Litz six weeks ago. Turns out I was just rushing in and being dumb.

Ian texts nd says a bunch of those Scott Walker songs on YouTube are probably AI. Sure dude. Doesn’t bother me. Fine brother, fine.

IV: An Early Night

I don’t have a lot to say about last night. I didn’t get an escort. I didn’t even browse the escort sites. Mostly, I slept—twice more—and finished editing and publishing my essay He Gets on Base. Other than that, I didn’t do much of anything.

Cape Canaveral remained the soundtrack of the evening. I don’t even remember whether I talked to Litz. I had the tempura soba for dinner from the store, and that’s about all I can confidently remember.

Around five o’clock, I realized I’d slept very little over the past week. As I’ve mentioned before, I haven’t really slept well since I was fourteen, with very few exceptions. A week of minimal sleep isn’t unusual for me. After several days, though, it inevitably catches up with me. This was one of those times.

Earlier in the day, I’d finished a somewhat difficult edit of my journal entry, Am I Bisexual? After publishing that, I turned to the previous day’s essay, He Gets on Base, which was also running a bit behind. I thought I could get it edited and published before going to sleep, and, thankfully, I was right.

A couple of hours later, I took a short nap. When I woke up, I washed up, drank some water, put on some fresh music, and went back to work. I don’t remember thinking about much besides finishing the essay. That was the goal, and I wanted it out the door.

I finally fell asleep for the second time around 10:00 p.m. and woke up around 3:30 a.m.—a perfectly normal night by my standards.

Overall, it was a good day. I didn’t accomplish much in terms of sightseeing or adventure, but I did get two overdue essays edited and published. I caught up on some badly needed sleep, felt productive again, and, in the end, that was good enough.

This will probably be one of the shortest entries in The Days and Nights of My 50s, but not every day needs to be an epic. Sometimes getting the work done and getting some sleep is story enough.

Dedication:

For sleep. Thank god.

[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[The Days and Nights of the 50s, 7/25/26. He Gets on Base.

zmust be eighty meterswith planters all the way down , with planters all the way down it.

Some benches have backs.

Some don’t.

Obviously I’m taking the deluxe seating.

No plans today.

That’s the plan.

Maybe extend another night.

No reason to move.

Red Roof got cancelled.

Waiting on the Sony card.

Probably head back Tuesday unless Hugh suddenly decides otherwise.

I doubt it.

He said “maybe.”

That’s already twenty percent.

Then he didn’t text back.

That’s another twenty percent.

I just don’t think it’s happening.

If he calls, maybe Kobe.

I’m not cold-opening Kobe.

Women?

Sure.

Friends?

Different rules.

Bought Camels.

Pure economics.

American Spirits are ¥440.

Marble Blacks are ¥660.

Camels were something like ¥480 for twenty.

The math wins.

Star liked my pieces.

There’s something going on there.

I know there is.

She texted back fast enough.

Not saying anything dramatic.

Just…

I have a read on these things.

Music.

Nothing beats side two.

“Rock & Roll.”

Then “Sweet Jane.”

Come on.

Lou Reed was absolutely on one.

People always talk about “Walk on the Wild Side.”

Fine.

It’s good.

But Street Hassle…

Different universe.

He played twenty-plus minutes of it live when I saw him in 2003.

Incredible.

Rosie’s in Thailand.

Pink hair now.

Twenty-three? Twenty-four?

Typical Thailand.

III: Late Afternoon

arly Afternoon

Dude, whether you know it or not—if you’re even halfway interesting—you eventually become Larry King.

“Maybe Hong Kong… maybe the weather… coffee…”

Dot dot dot.

The famous Larry King ellipsis.

God, I loved that.

“Mets win…”

Always the Mets.

“Mets win… rain tomorrow… baby dies… RIP… gonna take a shit… Larry out…”

Everything separated by ellipses like every thought had exactly the same emotional weight. That’s genius. USA Today probably paid him a million bucks for two tiny paragraphs. Larry transcended journalism. It was its own literary form.

Speaking of old media guys…

I think this has been reported, so I’m not talking out of school. Manuel said Larry was almost broke when he died. I don’t know the numbers—I think Manuel threw out something like a million dollars in debt—but the point wasn’t the number. The point was that after sixty-five years at the absolute top of broadcasting, CNN, the huge interviews, all of that… supposedly there wasn’t much left.

Again, that’s Manuel’s story, not mine.

If true, it’s fascinating.

You assume people who sit on top of the mountain for half a century just become permanently rich.

Apparently not.

Hong Kong still sounds attractive.

Not because of escorts.

Honestly, I can get dumplings anywhere.

But there’s something about Hong Kong…

South Korea too, though prostitution isn’t really an option there. That’s okay. I’ll get on the apps if I feel like dating.

I don’t actually want another marriage.

I thought I did with Liz.

Turns out I was just being dumb.

No regrets.

Seriously.

I forgive myself completely.

Starter still hasn’t gotten back to me.

Hugh either, but it’s only six in the morning, so he’s asleep.

Ian says a bunch of those Scott Walker songs on YouTube are probably AI.

Could be.

Doesn’t bother me.

I barely know what he’s talking about half the time anyway.

Green gum.

Always green gum.

The black stuff is basically gone in three chews.

Do people actually chew gum for half an hour?

I don’t.

Three chews.

Done.

This bench is better.

The hotel has this long strip outside—must be eighty metres—with planters all the way down it.

Some benches have backs.

Some don’t.

Obviously I’m taking the deluxe seating.

No plans today.

That’s the plan.

Maybe extend another night.

No reason to move.

Red Roof got cancelled.

Waiting on the Sony card.

Probably head back Tuesday unless Hugh suddenly decides otherwise.

I doubt it.

He said “maybe.”

That’s already twenty percent.

Then he didn’t text back.

That’s another twenty percent.

I just don’t think it’s happening.

If he calls, maybe Kobe.

I’m not cold-opening Kobe.

Women?

Sure.

Friends?

Different rules.

Bought Camels.

Pure economics.

American Spirits are ¥440.

Marble Blacks are ¥660.

Camels were something like ¥480 for twenty.

The math wins.

Star liked my pieces.

There’s something going on there.

I know there is.

She texted back fast enough.

Not saying anything dramatic.

Just…

I have a read on these things.

Music.

Nothing beats side two.

“Rock & Roll.”

Then “Sweet Jane.”

Come on.

Lou Reed was absolutely on one.

People always talk about “Walk on the Wild Side.”

Fine.

It’s good.

But Street Hassle…

Different universe.

He played twenty-plus minutes of it live when I saw him in 2003.

Incredible.

Rosie’s in Thailand.

Pink hair now.

Twenty-three? Twenty-four?

Typical Thailand.

Then out of nowhere…

An old girlfriend pops up.

Haven’t talked in thirty-four years.

Barely thought about her except when the algorithm reminded me she still exists.

Now she wants me to call.

Why not?

Thirty-four years.

What’s the worst that can happen?

I’ll give her a ring.

We’ll see what happens.

Duder out.

=====

Then there was the kissing.

I liked writing that her tongue had been “just a little aggressive.”

Whenever I edit, my brain begins making impossible associations.

One sentence reminds me of a song.

The song reminds me of a film.

The film reminds me of another book.

Then suddenly I’m reading Moneyball captions because I need a photograph of Brad Pitt smiling.

Why?

No idea.

It simply feels right.

Then Kevin Drew enters the room.

“Good sex never makes you feel hollow.”

Perfect.

That’s the epigraph.

Sorry, Bukowski.

You’ve just been replaced.

By now I’d drifted into The Sopranos.

I’ve watched the entire series twice.

One of my favourite moments comes near the end, when Carmela asks Meadow whether she’s really leaving.

Meadow says yes.

Carmela asks, “So you wanna get out?”

Meadow nods.

Carmela smiles sadly.

“Let me draw you a map.”

I’ve always loved that line.

It’s funny.

Protective.

A little manipulative.

Entirely maternal.

Like so much of The Sopranos, it’s simultaneously warm and faintly menacing.

Good dialogue almost always carries two emotions at once.

That’s something I’ve stolen shamelessly.

By mid-morning I’d spent three hours changing words that most readers would never notice.

Dick.

Cock.

Looked.

Seemed.

Perhaps.

Maybe.

Delete.

Undo.

Delete again.

Smoke.

Coffee.

Another cigarette.

More editing.

There are days when writing feels like building a cathedral.

There are other days when it feels like repeatedly moving the same chair around the living room in search of the perfect angle.

This was definitely a chair-moving day.

Around lunchtime I finally leaned back.

The piece wasn’t perfect.

It never would be.

But it was alive.

Yesterday had begun as a train ride, become a date, drifted into sex, wandered through a convenience store at half past midnight, detoured into Zero Dark Thirty, and somehow ended as six thousand words.

That’s the strange alchemy of memoir.

You don’t write life.

You live it first.

Then you spend the next morning discovering what it was actually about.

Posted on by Matt Thomas

The Days and Nights of the 50s, 7/25/26. He Gets on Base.

Epigraphs:

So you wanna get out?
Let me draw a map

–Superchunk

Good sex it never makes you feel hollow
Good sex it never makes you clean

–Kevin Drew

I watched your face die backwards
Little baby in my memory
You told me victory’s sweet
Even deep in the cheap seats

–Conor Obrest

I. Morning

I slept better than I have in a long time. As best as I can recall, I went to bed around 12:40 AM. and woke up around 6:40 AM. Six hours is not necessarily a full night’s sleep, but lately it has felt like a luxury. I woke up clear-headed, made coffee in my room, and headed down to the Lawson around the corner for another one. I picked up some potato chips while I was there, wandered back to the hotel, and settled into the morning.

The first order of business was practical. I checked my messages, replied to my son Hugh, and told him I’d be happy to swing by home on Monday as long as he let me know what time he expected to be home. “Love, Papa,” as always. I checked in on Elliott as well. Nothing had changed. As of this writing, we’re still meeting at 6:30 this evening at a beer bar in southern Osaka, and I am looking forward to it.

Once these logistics were out of the way, my mind drifted, as it sometimes does, toward movies and television.

I started thinking about The Sopranos. I’ve watched this show all the way through twice, and I’ve revisited a number of episodes over the years. I think James Gandolfini and Michael Imperioli both give remarkable performances, and there are many individual scenes I genuinely love. Even so, I’ve gradually realised that David Chase’s aesthetic simply isn’t mine. Whether the repetition is intentional or not—and I suspect it is—I find both the storytelling and the character arcs to be cyclical.

The performances remain compelling, but the show continually circles back over the same emotional territory. I understand why so many people consider it one of the greatest television dramas ever made. I don’t. I like it and I’m glad I watched it, but I don’t imagine I’ll ever watch the series again.

Thinking about The Sopranos naturally led me to the dialogue that has stayed with me over the years. Not necessarily the greatest lines ever written, but the ones I find myself returning to.

Roger Wade, in The Long Goodbye, pours two glasses of anisette and says to Philip Marlowe, “Take that goddamn J. C. Penney tie off.”

Marlowe calmly replies, “I’m happy to drink with you, but I’m not taking my tie off.”

I don’t know why I love that exchange so much, but I always have.

Another favorite comes from Godfather II. Michael Corleone’s sister comes to him with her new boyfriend Merle to ask Michael for money.

“Connie, I don’t know this Merle. I don’t know what he does. I don’t know what he lives on. Tell him you’re never going to see him again, and come and live with me in Tahoe.” She does of course. It’s funny, oddly romantic, a little menacing, and super funny.

Then there’s The Wire. Bodie has always been my favourite character, and one of my favourite exchanges comes in Seasons 3 shortly after Cutty gets out of prison.

“I’m surprised Avon lets y’all get your heads up.”

Bodie shrugs.

“Sometimes you got to.”

Four words. An entire philosophy.

Seinfeld contributes one as well. Kramer proudly shows Jerry his silk boxer shorts and encourages him to buy a pair. Jerry politely declines.

“No thank you. They’re just a little too delectable for me.”

Perfect.

Finally, there’s Michael Clayton. Arthur Edens has come apart at the seams strips off in the deposition room. Michael flies to Wisconsin to rescue him, and after a brief argument simply says,

“Let’s get out of Milwaukee and we’ll talk about it.”

Sometimes a single sentence can contain an entire friendship.

As I thought about these great quotes, I realized something that hadn’t quite crystallized before. I don’t dislike slow films. I dislike static ones. I love Tarkovsky, but I don’t love all of Tarkovsky equally. Mirror and Stalker feel alive to me. Nostalghia does not. Likewise, I don’t need constant action, but I do need movement—emotional, philosophical, psychological, narrative. I want to feel that a story is becoming something different from where it began.

That, I think, is the aesthetic I’m really chasing. After that my thoughts wandered to Craig Finn, the singer-songwriter who heads the Hold Steady.

The first Hold Steady song I ever heard was “Sequestered in Memphis.” At the time I misunderstood the entire premise. I thought the narrator was giving an interview to a journalist rather than being questioned by the police. Looking back, it seems obvious, but it never occurred to me then.

What always stayed with me, though, was a single line:

In barlight she looked alright. In daylight she looked desperate.

I’ve know exactly what Craig means here. I’ve been there too.

By then the morning had slipped away from me. As of this writing, I’m still working on my essay, Am I Bisexual? It should probably have been published two days ago. It’s one of the more complicated pieces I’ve written in a while, and I’d rather finish the edit properly than rush it out simply to keep the daily streak alive.

The plan from here is straightforward. I’m going upstairs to keep editing for another hour or two. I’ll get organised, probably grab a short nap later this afternoon, and then head down to southern Osaka in plenty of time to meet Elliott at 6:30.

Everything else can wait.

II. Afternoon

By nine I’d finally stopped putzing about I was about to start. I rearranged the room one more time, put on Neil Halstead instead of Ryan Adams, then Ryan Adams instead of Neil Halstead, opened three browser tabs, closed two of them, looked at hotel dates, thought about escorts for exactly as long as I had promised myself I wouldn’t, and somehow convinced myself this counted as preparation.

It did, in a way. Every writer has their rituals. Mine mostly involve avoiding the sentence I’m about to write.

I remembered a much loved Superchunk lyric:

“So you wanna get out / well I’ll draw you a map.”

This turned out to be the whole morning. Dude if this place sucks so bad just jet. I’ll buy you and Amtrak ticket. Seriously bro. Hit the brinks.^

The next few days existed only as pencil marks: maybe Osaka until Monday, maybe longer, maybe Pattaya, maybe Litz, maybe Hugh, maybe Mio. None of it fixed. Just possible roads branching away from the same hotel room.

The night before, Litz had mentioned how much she loved the ending of piece I wrote about her. I had already mostly forgotten this part, so I took another look. It went like this:

The challenges in our relationship are the product of two imperfect people, each bringing old habits, old fears, old hopes, and old wounds into something new. This is not failure. It is simply the complicated business of being human.

I made it halfway through before I started crying. Not dramatic crying. Just enough that I had to stop reading. Sometimes a paragraph waits until you’re ready to understand what you wrote.

III. Early Evening:

Around 6:30 this evening, after working for about an hour and a half on the edit of yesterday’s journal, I walked a few minutes from my new hotel to a nearby convenience store to get something to drink.

Several hours earlier, I had texted my friend Elliott to ask whether he wanted to grab a drink tomorrow night. As I walked to the store, he replied that he was up for it and suggested a beer bar in southern Osaka. I told him I would meet him there.

Thinking about Elliott, I reflected on how much I admire his intelligence. I am a high school teacher, and Elliott used to be one of my colleagues. He left the school years ago and now tutors economics online and manages various investments. He also used to teach mathematics.

I am a social studies teacher. Over the years, I have taught a wide variety of classes, and I feel that I could adequately instruct students in almost any area of social studies. Elliott’s mathematical intelligence, however, has always struck me as remarkable.

In fact, I sometimes envy the mathematics teachers I have known, because mathematics is simply not one of my strengths. I was a decent math student for a time, but I hit the wall with calculus during my junior year of high school and never took another math class. Today, I almost never use mathematics except for the calculator on my phone and a little basic financial housekeeping.

This does not mean that Elliott is smarter than I am. I consider myself highly intelligent. Nonetheless, several times over the years, I have wondered whether he might indeed be smarter than me.

Thinking about it today, I realized that this is probably because his intelligence expresses itself very differently from mine. If I absolutely had to, I could probably relearn enough mathematics to teach middle school. That would be about my limit. Elliott is whip-smart and could probably teach most of the social studies classes I have taught without too much difficulty.

I often reflect on how strongly my intelligence expresses itself in certain areas of life, while in others I am essentially incompetent. I have a solid understanding of subjects such as history, politics, philosophy, psychology, religion, and metaphysics. However, I could not change a tire to save my life.

Although I am not exactly made of money, I almost always call a professional to handle household tasks such as fixing a faucet or clearing a drain. I find these jobs to be a tremendous hassle. In fact, they piss me off. I am happy to pay someone a few dollars to come and sort them out.

As I entered the convenience store, my thoughts turned to the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin is one of the greatest television and film writers of all time. I love The West Wing and The Social Network, and I have enjoyed much of his other work. For reasons of his own, however, Sorkin insists on directing some of his films.

He wrote and directed Molly’s Game. Molly’s Game sucks ass. The script is incomprehensible and all over the place. It is, without question, the worst piece of writing he has ever produced. The direction is equally terrible. The characterization is weak, the emotional beats are overdone, and the entire film is syrupy and sappy. I cannot stand it.

A second film of interest here is The Trial of the Chicago 7, which Sorkin also wrote and directed. The script is actually quite good, and the acting is strong. Once again, however, Sorkin’s direction is awful.

The film concerns the protests surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. I was not alive at the time, but my understanding is that thousands of protesters gathered in the city, largely in opposition to the Vietnam War and to the Democratic Party’s handling of it. The police responded with tear gas, clubs, arrests, and widespread violence. Some protesters fought back, and things became extremely ugly.

There are only a few major action sequences in the movie. Sorkin’s handling of them is pure trash. He has no idea how to direct physical chaos. The cameras are always in the wrong place. It is difficult to tell where anyone is or what is happening. The entire thing feels out of control, and not in an intentional way.

Molly’s Game is a bad movie, and I do not care. The Trial of the Chicago 7 could have been a good movie with competent direction. Sorkin was simply not the man for the job.

As I walked back to my hotel, I began thinking about how strange it is that otherwise intelligent people, for reasons of ego, ambition, or simple misjudgment, sometimes insist on doing things at which they are obviously bad.

Then I thought: Well, I have probably done this too.

There have certainly been times when I believed I could handle something and ended up over my skis. I suspect this is true of everyone. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and intelligence manifests itself in different ways.

Over time, I have tried to learn how to pick my spots and stay in my lane. I do not always succeed. However, I hope I do a better job of it than Aaron Sorkin.

IV: Evening Back at My Hotel

As I walked to the train station to go meet Elliot I called Annie. Annie has always been completely outta control, and she absolutely loves it. Within five minutes she’d decided to crash her ex-husband’s wedding in a tent, seduce one of the guests, reminisced about working at Spokane’s Mars Casino, told me stories involving cocaine, dresses, gambling, and an older gay man who’d taught her “everything about sex,” invited me to her hypothetical future wedding, and, after I jokingly suggested we skip straight to sex ourselves, said she’d think about it. Talking to Annie has always been like standing beside a fire hose. The stories don’t really have beginnings or endings. They simply arrive.

The morning passed quietly. I answered a message from my brother Hugh, who was planning to stop by the house in Kyoto sometime during the coming week, and sent a few encouraging replies to several women I’d been chatting with online. One woman in the Philippines was hoping to find work overseas in Singapore or Malaysia. Another, somewhere in Thailand, simply wanted to know how my morning was going. Others had drifted into that peculiar limbo occupied by most dating-app conversations: friendly enough to continue, but unlikely ever to become anything more.

After a while I found myself scrolling through far more conversations than I probably should have. Dating apps create the illusion that your social world is constantly expanding, when in reality most interactions simply fade away after a few messages. Every now and then somebody surprises you, but most conversations end not with an argument or rejection, but with simple inertia. Nobody does anything wrong. Life just moves on.

Perhaps that’s why I no longer find the process frustrating. Years ago I probably would have chased every lead, replied to every message immediately, and wondered why nothing seemed to develop. These days I treat it more like browsing a bookstore than shopping for groceries. If something genuinely interesting appears, wonderful. If not, I’ll probably enjoy my coffee just as much.

My musical companion for the morning was Craig Finn. I first discovered him through “Sequestered in Memphis,” and, like many first-time listeners, completely misunderstood the song. I thought the narrator was speaking to a journalist after a reckless night in Memphis. Only later did I realize he was being questioned by the police. Somehow that misunderstanding didn’t lessen the song; if anything, it made me appreciate Finn’s writing even more. His characters are so vividly drawn that they feel real even when you’ve misunderstood the plot.

One line has always stayed with me: “In bar light she looked alright. In daylight she looked desperate.” Finn is ostensibly describing someone else, but the brilliance of the lyric is that it cuts both ways. By dawn, they’re both desperate. We’ve all had moments where the previous night’s confidence evaporates with the morning light. Finn simply found the perfect sentence to describe it.

V: On the Way to See Elliot

After finally giving up on the day’s editing, I showered, threw on a clean shirt, and hurried toward Taishō, where I was meeting Elliott at a craft beer pub called TNT. I was running a few minutes behind schedule—as usual—but Elliott has never struck me as the sort of person who minds waiting over a pint. I figured I’d make up the time somewhere between the hotel and the station, although experience suggested otherwise.

The train ride became one of those familiar periods of suspended possibility. While checking directions and changing lines, I also found myself checking dating apps, replying to messages, and idly wondering what the rest of the evening might bring. If everything went perfectly, I’d spend a few hours drinking good beer with Elliott, head back toward my hotel, and perhaps finish the night with a date. It wasn’t exactly a plan so much as several loosely connected possibilities competing for my attention.

Somewhere between stations my thoughts drifted to Tomoyo, one of my former students whom I’d seen again at the book launch. We’d nearly gone out together once before, years after she’d graduated, but circumstances had gotten in the way. Twenty years have now passed since I first taught her, which removes any ethical hesitation I might once have felt. I found myself wondering whether I should simply ask her out the next time I am in Tokyo. Sometimes life becomes unnecessarily complicated because we spend too much time calculating the odds instead of asking straightforward questions.

That seemed to be the theme of the journey. I checked my bank balance, priced a few possibilities for later that evening, briefly reconsidered future trips to Thailand and even South Korea, nearly walked the wrong way through a station, and at one point came within a few feet of being clipped by a taxi while jaywalking. None of it mattered very much. My mind was simply ricocheting from one possibility to another while my body steadily carried me toward a beer with a friend.

By the time I emerged from Taishō Station, the mental static had largely disappeared. Elliott was waiting, the pub was less than a minute away, and for the next few hours the only decision I intended to make was which beer to order first.

=====

The Osaka Loop Line has a hypnotic quality after a while. Every minute or two another calm recorded voice announces the next station, another transfer, another reminder to mind the gap. After ten or fifteen minutes the words stop meaning anything. They become part of the rhythm of the journey, almost musical, drifting in and out beneath whatever happens to be occupying your thoughts.

Mine, for reasons I still can’t explain, wandered toward negative igloos.

I have absolutely no idea what a negative igloo is. I have never knowingly encountered one before or since. It arrived fully formed, demanded my attention for perhaps fifteen seconds, and then disappeared forever, leaving me no wiser than before. If someone were to ask me today what a negative igloo might actually be, I honestly couldn’t begin to answer. Nonetheless, somewhere between Kitahama and Taishō, negative igloos briefly became the most important concept in my universe.

The rest of my brain was scarcely more coherent. Ryan Adams was singing Drank Like a River, and I found myself thinking about the tiny crack in his voice—that moment where it sounds less like he’s performing a song than remembering something he’d rather forget. Some singers sound polished. Ryan often sounds wounded. There’s a difference, and it’s one of the reasons I keep returning to his records.

Then, just as suddenly, I realized I had absolutely no idea where I was.

I’d somehow missed my stop, wandered out the wrong exit, and was now standing in a station that looked vaguely familiar while possessing almost no useful geographical knowledge whatsoever. Google Maps insisted I was only two minutes away from Elliott. My instincts insisted otherwise. My instincts, it should be noted, have an unfortunate habit of arguing with Google.

For a few minutes I experienced what I can only describe as a minor travel panic. Not real panic—nothing so dramatic—but that familiar sensation every traveller knows, where every street begins to resemble every other street and every directional arrow seems specifically designed to send you somewhere else. I walked one way, doubled back, checked Google again, ignored Google, trusted Google, ignored it again, and somehow managed to end up exactly where I’d started.

Meanwhile my thoughts continued their usual pinball routine. Was the Sony credit card finally on its way? Should I spend part of August in South Korea instead of Bali? Would Yo still be available later that evening? Why hadn’t Jennifer replied? Why did Meinster have time to send me promotional emails but apparently not royalty statements? None of these questions had anything whatsoever to do with finding a pub in Taishō, but my mind saw no reason to separate one subject from another.

Eventually I admitted defeat and messaged Elliott. Dude I am totally lost. His reply arrived almost immediately.

Where are you?

It was the perfect question because I genuinely didn’t know.

Google claimed I was standing practically on top of TNT Craft Beer Pub. My own eyes suggested I was standing outside an Irish bar that definitely wasn’t TNT. For a brief moment I began to wonder whether the pub existed only as a cartographical rumour.

I texted him back and said I was looking at Taisho Station. He said he would be right there. One minute later I saw him across the street and crossed to meet him.

When Elliott finally rescued me from my navigational incompetence, TNT turned out to be exactly where Google had insisted it was all along. The fault, as usual, lay somewhere between the phone and the human operating it.

“You’re hopeless,” he said.

“I prefer ‘geographically imaginative.'”

He laughed. “Come on.”

One minute later we were golden.

VI: TNT Craft Beer with Elliot

The pub was everything I hoped it would be: a long wooden bar, a dozen taps of rotating local craft beers, a cheerful bartender in a baseball cap who somehow managed to keep everybody’s glass full without ever looking hurried. When one of the kegs kicked halfway through pouring my pint, she apologized and handed me the remainder for free.

“Sorry” she said.

“No worries,” I said. “I’ll always take half a beer for free.”

She laughed.

“I like your hat,” I said.

“I get that a lot,” she said.

I turned to Elliot and asked if he wanted to hear a joke.

“A shepherd is in bed with his girlfriend for the first time. She asks him, ‘How experienced are you?’ He closes his eyes…starts counting…and falls asleep.”

The bartender laughed.

Elliott buried his face in his hands.

“Please,” he said, “never change.”

“I make no promises” I said.

By the time the quizmaster welcomed everyone, we’d accumulated enough empty glasses to suggest we were taking the evening seriously while simultaneously possessing almost no confidence in our ability to answer questions about anything.

“What’s are name?” Elliot asked me.

“How about the Glorious Mofos?”

“Of course.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the quizmaster announced, “welcome!”

“He seems enthusiastic,” I whispered.

“He’s paid to be.”

We were spectacularly mediocre.

Spain had won something. Bananas were radioactive. Kobe Bryant was apparently named after Japanese beef. Beyond that we entered a sort of intellectual free fall.

“What do you think?”

“No idea.”

“You?”

“Less than no idea.”

“Write banana.”

“I already did.”

“Excellent.”

Our strategy rapidly evolved into letting Elliott answer the questions that sounded plausible while I concentrated on drinking beer, admiring the bartender, and periodically checking whether Yo had confirmed our appointment.

At one point Elliott looked over my shoulder.

“You’re really going after this?”

“I think so.”

“You ever think about…you know…not?”

I considered that.

“For about three seconds.”

He laughed.

“I thought so.”

That was one of the things I’d always appreciated about Elliott. He never judges. He asked questions. Usually he agrees with me. Other times now. Occasionally he looks at me as though I’ve completely lost my mind. But whatever I do he never tries to become my conscience. Old friendships eventually settle into that rhythm. You stop trying to improve each other and simply learn to enjoy each other’s company.

The conversation drifted from Japan to Canada, from the weather to my girlfriends, from travel plans to parents. I vented a little about my mother bitching about my writing. Elliott listened more than he spoke, occasionally nodding, occasionally smiling in that understated Canadian way that somehow communicated, I don’t entirely agree, but I understand why you’re upset.

By the time the second round ended, I’d glanced at my watch three or four times.

“You’ve got somewhere to be,” Elliott said.

“I might.”

“You definitely do.”

“Indeed I do.”

He grinned.

“Go lose your T-card.”

I laughed so hard I nearly spilled my beer.

“I’ll report back.”

“You’d better.”

We settled the bill, shook hands outside TNT, and headed in opposite directions. Elliott toward another ordinary Saturday night. Me toward Umeda, where Yo-chan was waiting.

VII: On the Way to See Yo Chan

As I entered Taisho Station the JR announcements began their familiar chant once again.

The next stop is…

Somewhere between stations my mind wandered back to negative igloos. I still have absolutely no idea what one is.

The JR announcer continued serenely informing us that the next stop was Kyobashi, or Osaka Castle Park, or somewhere that probably existed. In my head it became:

“Please enjoy negative igloos. Transfer here for the glorious nonsense line. Please exit on the right.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “I got it.”

I did not, in fact, have it.

Somewhere between the craft beer and the heat, I’d managed to convince myself I’d fallen asleep on the train. Maybe I had. Maybe I hadn’t. Either way, I suddenly had absolutely no idea where I was.

Oh, shit.

I checked Google Maps again. Every time I opened it, it confidently gave me a different answer.

“Seventeen minutes.”

I calculated that I would get to the shop about five minutes early. This turned out to be off. The announcer cheerfully reminded us to mind the gap.

“I’m trying to mind all the gaps.”

I got off the train and looked around. Then decided getting off had been exactly the right decision. I checked the train map on the station board. I was also seventeen minutes past Umeda. Oh great. Back we go.

I thought to myself: I need cash. Then a taxi. Then a cigarette. Possibly in that order. First I had to get back to Umeda.

The train came and I rode the short distance back. The instant I stepped onto the street, I lit a cigarette and hailed a cab. I had just a fee drags when a cab pulled up and I had to toss the cig.

The taxi driver nodded when I said, “Umeda.” Progress. Seven minutes, Google claimed. For once, we agreed. As the cab rolled through the humid Osaka evening, I realized I was no longer worried about getting lost. I was worried cause I was a little late.

I’d spent the entire afternoon imagining meeting Yo chan, and now my grand entrance was shaping up to be me arriving slightly sweaty, smelling faintly of cigarettes and carrying too little cash.

Great first impression I thought.

The driver dropped me exactly where Google said he would. Google immediately betrayed me again.

Fourth floor. I found the fourth floor. Everything was locked. No people. No reception. No Yo-chan. No nothing.

Just an eerily quiet hallway that felt like the set of a film where everyone had disappeared moments before I arrived.

I called the shop.

“I’m here.”

A reply came back almost instantly.

“First floor. It’s hard to find.”

No shit.

A guy walked over and picked me up. We walked five minutes to where the shop really was, no where near where Google said it was. Typical. This guy knows nothing. Apparently.

Five minutes later I found the place.

VIII: Yo Chan

The shop staff took me up in the elevator to the 7th and opened the door to room 701. For some reason I found this number to be fitting. There was a shower but no sink. I took my own clothes and began to rinse off. Yo chan soon entered the room. She looked like her picture, but not quite. The agency website said she 24, a fact she confirmed in person. She looked about 28 to me, and I supposed her life was perhaps not the easiest.

I found her attractive, and knew I would be able to cum. She joined me in the shower, soaped up, and began to stroke my dick. In general, I prefer to handle my equipment. It is a sensitive area, and I just know it best. I turned my back to her, and then a minute later I stepped out and toweled off. She followed shortly thereafter.

As we stepped out of the shower, she assessed my naked body. She said, “You look like Boris Johnson.” I laughed away and didn’t reply. I decided then that there were some conversations not worth extending.

We climbed onto to bed. I was already erect, and she was at half mast. She unwrapped a condom and slid it on my dick. I had never sucked anyone’s dick before, and I was both exited and just a little nervous.

We began kissing. I like a bit of tongue during kissing, however, her tongue was a little aggressive. Oh well I thought, kissing, at least tonight, would not the main event. I broke the kiss, and went down on her. She was semi-erect, however I was able to fit her full penis into my mouth. The first thing I noticed was her large foreskin. The second thing was, the act was neither pleasant nor unpleasant, and she tasted neither good nor bad. I was eager to make her cum.

After a bit, she motioned for me to come back up to the head of the bed. She climbed back on top of me, and slid my dick into her ass. She had applied lube to her asshole, and hard dick slid in easily. After a short amount of time, I asked her to turn around and entered her from the rear. She began to moan and pant, and I found this very sexy. I was about to cum, and then, as I usually, do, I pulled and finished on a towel while sitting on my knees.

I then collapsed back the bed. She also sat on her knees, and came on the towel. Some of her cum landed on my leg, which I found faintly amusing. After this, I needed a cigarette. There was no smoking in the room so I asked her if I could go downstairs. She said sure, just pick me up a Pocari Sweat and call reception to get back up. I told her I would be back in five minutes, however I knew this was a lie. The fact was I would smoke three of four cigarettes and decompress for a while. This was about an hour into our date, and I had paid for ninety minutes. I did not want to re-engage in sex, so smoking and thinking quietly seemed like a good plan.

When I stepped back onto the street, the wind had gone out of my sails. Not in a bad way. Just…gone. For most of the day I’d been propelled by anticipation. Catch the train. Find Elliott. Don’t get lost. Meet Yo chan. Get the cash. Find the building. Try not to make an idiot of yourself. Then, just like that, there was nothing left to chase.

Osaka was still humming around me, but I’d become a spectator again. I checked the time on my phone. It was 12:30 AM. This immediately made me think of the Katheryn Bigalow film Zero Dark Thirty. I found myself thinking about Zero Dark Thirty. I’d never understood the criticism that it somehow endorsed torture. Showing something ugly isn’t the same as celebrating it. A film can portray violence honestly without recommending it, just as Goodfellas isn’t an argument for joining the Mafia. Sometimes a story simply trusts the audience to tell the difference.

I ducked into a nearby convenience store and bought two Pocaris, two beers, a burrito, and a pack of pack of cigarettes. I smoke another heater and drank one of the beers on the street. Then I called up to reception. There was no security, and I did not see any other customers the whole time I was there, however, at least time, I did what I was told.

Back in bed with Yo, we both undressed again and she fell asleep. I found our legs entwined. He body was very comfortable, and I can honestly say this was the sweetest part of the evening.

She woke up and pointed at the clock. It was time to go. We dressed and walked to the elevator. I leaned to give her a goodnight kiss, and she kissed me back, lightly. This was goodbye.

=====

It was after last train, so I got a taxi back my hotel near Yodoyabashi Station. The taxi rolled silently through the warm Osaka night I leaned my head against the window and watched the city slide by. Tomorrow I’d probably throw myself into another impossible plan, another train, another woman, another glorious and bizarre day. I was, by this point, quite tired.

A few hours earlier I’d been arguing with Google Maps, inventing negative igloos, convincing myself I’d missed stations that probably never existed, and experiencing a full-blown case of what I can only describe as travel boggle. Now all that urgency seemed faintly ridiculous. The date had happened. It had gone OK. I lost my T-card. I’d survived.

Travel does that. What feels catastrophic at eight o’clock becomes a mildly amusing anecdote by twelve-thirty.

But for the moment, there was nowhere I needed to be.

IX: Late Night Hotel and Bed

Back in my room I took off my shirt, washed up, and prepared for bed. For reasons I can’t entirely explain, my thoughts eventually wandered toward football. I’ve always enjoyed the sport, even if basketball remains my first love, and one of my earliest football memories comes from a Washington State game against Stanford. My mother, Claudia—CL to longtime readers—was friendly with Janet Elway, John’s mother, and at one point Janet served as something of a mentor to her. Through that connection, we ended up at the game while John Elway was still Stanford’s quarterback.

Before kickoff, Elway apparently told my mother that if he threw a touchdown, he would point toward us in the stands. Naturally, he did throw one. He was John Elway, after all. And after the score, he looked up and pointed in our direction while we yelled ourselves hoarse. I was still rooting for Washington State, which complicated the moment slightly, but even then I understood that we were watching somebody exceptional.

Elway went on to become one of the defining quarterbacks of his generation, first at Stanford and then during a long NFL career with Denver. What stays with me, though, isn’t the statistics or the championships. It’s the strange intimacy of that afternoon: my mother’s connection to his family, the promise made before the game, and the tiny gesture toward the stands after the touchdown. Sports are full of enormous public moments, but the memories that survive are often the small private ones folded inside them.

I claimed into bed, and indulged in one final reflection for the day. I thought about how funny it was that one minute you are deep in the throes of passion, moaning and panting your partner’s name, and the next you are smoking a cigarette, drinking a beer, and thinking about Zero Dark Thirty on the street. Sex, which feels so wonderful and necessary at the time, does tend to recede pretty quickly. However, the power of good sex, as Kevin Drew says in out epigraph, cannot be beat.

Dedication:

For Yo chan. Thank you for taking my T card baby. Godspeed. You rule.

Posted on by Matt Thomas

The Days and Night of My 50s IV, 7/24/26: Am I Bisexual?

The locus of action is always in motion.

— Erving Goffman

This one goes to out to somebody watching tonight. She knows who she is.

— Bob Dylan

“Come on, baby, let’s rock and roll.”
— Michael Knott

Rock and roll motherfucking rules.

It just does.

Music in general rules. Live music rules even harder. I love almost every kind of music there is, from Appalachian folk to Georgian polyphony, from Miles Davis to Papa M, although admittedly not always in equal measure. Music has been one of the great organizing forces of my life for as long as I can remember. It has rescued bad days, elevated good ones, carried me through grief, celebrated victories, and made long train rides, lonely hotel rooms, and empty apartments feel just a little less empty. If today’s essay seems to wander off in musical directions more often than usual, that’s because today belongs to music.

The last couple of days have been filled with minor crises, accumulated errands, and one rather difficult conversation with my mother that I’ll briefly update readers on in a moment. None of these problems were especially serious in isolation. Collectively, however, they had begun to clutter the landscape of my mind. I woke up this morning with an unusually simple goal: clear away the small stuff, stay close to the hotel, listen to music, write, and otherwise leave myself alone.

There were still a handful of practical matters that needed attention. I’d been meaning to buy a new pair of headphones for several days. My hair was beginning to reach the point where even I had to admit it probably needed cutting. More importantly, ever since returning to Japan six weeks ago, my phone’s SIM card had been behaving erratically. The hotel Wi-Fi had been excellent, as Japanese hotel Wi-Fi almost always is, but every time I stepped outside I was reminded that “mostly functional” isn’t really functional at all. Since I’m planning to leave Japan again later this summer, I knew I couldn’t keep putting it off. Today I had a two o’clock appointment at the nearby SoftBank store, barely a three-minute walk from the hotel. The haircut could wait. The headphones could wait. The SIM card could not.

Readers of yesterday’s essay may be wondering about my mother and me. After our rather tense exchange yesterday morning, we exchanged messages later in the day. We still see a number of things differently, particularly regarding my writing and my dating life, and I doubt those differences will disappear anytime soon. On the other hand, we also love each other very much, and hopefully neither of us has any interest in staying angry for long. Families have disagreements. Good families keep talking anyway. I suspect that’s where we’re headed.

The same goes for Litz and me.

After nearly a month of trying to coordinate our schedules, we’re still trying. Unfortunately, her work situation remains remarkably unpredictable. She’s effectively working under a zero-hour arrangement, which totally sucks, which means an off day that appears available for her to travel one day can disappear the next. We’d hoped to meet in Takamatsu, roughly halfway between Kochi and Kyoto, but another last-minute change at work forced us to postpone yet again. We were both disappointed, but neither of us blamed the other. Sometimes life simply refuses to cooperate. We’ll keep talking, keep laughing, and eventually the calendars will line up. If they don’t before I leave for Thailand and then Spokane later this summer, we’ll simply keep doing what we’ve been doing remarkably well for months now: staying close despite the distance.

Once those thoughts were out of the way, the day became pleasantly ordinary.

II: Afternoon

I left the hotel a little before two carrying both my residence card and my My Number card, even though SoftBank had only asked me to bring one. Years of dealing with paperwork have taught me that bringing too much identification is infinitely preferable to bringing too little.

The walk to the station took only a couple of minutes. As usual, I finished a cigarette on the way, tossed it before entering, and descended into the cool underground passage. Every Japanese station seems to have its own invisible weather system. Long before you see the platform, you feel the wind. Part of it comes from the enormous ventilation system. Part of it comes from the trains themselves, which push columns of air through the tunnels like giant pistons every time they arrive. Whatever the engineering explanation, it always feels faintly magical. Before you hear the train, before you see another passenger, the station announces itself with moving air.

The appointment itself took exactly eight minutes.

The young SoftBank employee helping me wore a SoftBank Hawks baseball jersey instead of an office shirt, complete with a day’s worth of black stubble. For reasons I can’t quite explain, the whole thing struck me as perfectly Japanese. Professional without being overly formal. Efficient without pretending to be important. He checked my identification, installed the new SIM, and, naturally, it didn’t work right away. We both stared at the screen for a few seconds before I restarted the phone. It restarted almost instantly, found the network, and returned to life.

Problem solved. It’s funny how satisfying it is to cross one genuinely useful task off your list.

Afterwards I wandered no farther than the immediate neighborhood around the hotel. I stopped by a drugstore and a Lawson to purchase provisions. By the time I walked back through the hotel doors, less than forty minutes had passed since I’d left. The room was cool. The new SIM card worked. The refrigerator was full. The errands were finished. For the first time in several days, there was nothing left to do except what I’d wanted to do all along. Listen to music. Write my essays. Do my job.

Every now and then, simply sit there and enjoy the fact that not every thought requires action, not every errand deserves urgency, and not every day has to become an adventure. Sometimes crossing three small things off the list is more than enough. From there, all that’s left is to press play.

There were still a couple of unanswered questions hanging over the afternoon. My son might text. If he did, we’d decide whether to meet in Kyoto tomorrow evening before I returned to what has unexpectedly become my little base camp here in Osaka.

Litz was still trying to untangle her work schedule. We’ve become surprisingly good at living with uncertainty, talking several times a day while waiting for circumstances to cooperate. By Sunday evening I should have a much clearer idea whether we’ll finally meet before I leave Japan again or whether Thailand will arrive first.

I sat down to today’s journal. As I’ve mentioned before, this daily series is still brand new, but I’m working harder on it than almost anything I’ve written in quite a while. The response so far has been encouraging. Whether it eventually approaches the readership of my St. George’s series remains to be seen, but I’m quietly hopeful.

The St. George’s essays continue to surprise me. For reasons I still don’t completely understand, that series gradually climbed Google’s rankings until searches for “St. George’s Spokane History” began returning my essays near the very top of the page, sometimes directly beneath Wikipedia and occasionally even ahead of the school’s own website.

I find this oddly gratifying.

For the first several years of The Kyoto Kibbitzer, I cross-posted almost everything to Medium with very little success. I did almost no search-engine optimization, almost no promotion, and almost all of my readership came through Facebook and WordPress. Then, almost without warning, the St. George’s pieces found an audience.

I’d like to think that somewhere along the way some perspective parents trying to learn about the history of the school may have stumbled across my recollections instead. If this is true, it makes me smile.

The series is affectionate. It’s nostalgic. But it’s also honest. I attended St. George’s from 1980 until 1992, and schools in the 1980s operated according to a very different set of expectations than schools today. Discipline was different. Student life was different. The relationships between students and teachers were different. Sexual mores were different. My only goal was to reflect those years as accurately and fairly as I could.

Whether readers agreed with every conclusion hardly mattered. They read the stories. For that, I’ll always be grateful. As soon as I began thinking about today’s essay, I knew I was going to start with music.

Music has been one of the central joys of my life for as long as I can remember.

As a young boy I wanted to learn the piano. I asked my mother several times if I could take lessons, however she replied that she could not afford them at the time. A few years later my parents’ financial situation improved enough that my younger brother Mike was able to study the cello for several years. He eventually became an excellent young player before other interests gradually took over. I was genuinely happy for him, although I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed that I’d missed my chance.

Over time I got over it, however in the back of my mind I always to learn to play.

After a major change in my work circumstances in 2018, I finally bought myself an inexpensive electronic keyboard and decided that, instead of taking formal lessons, I’d simply see how much I could teach myself. Armed with nothing more sophisticated than a chord-finder app and an unreasonable amount of free time, I slowly made a little progress, and was able to read and play several simple pieces.

I only performed publicly once—if “publicly” is the right word. A friend named Mela, whom I’d met through the wonderful and sadly now defunct Periscope app, eventually persuaded me to play two songs over the phone. I stumbled my way through “Someone I Care About” by the Modern Lovers and then attempted Echo & the Bunnymen’s “Ocean Rain.” As I’ve written elsewhere, I didn’t exactly dominate Ocean Rain. But it was at least passable. Mela applauded politely, and for one brief afternoon I felt like I’d accomplished something I’d wanted to do since childhood.

After playing for Mela, I began lose interest in the keyboard. I was never going to be good to play in public, and playing for Mela was a lot of fun. I decided to go out on a high note. Sometimes achieving a childhood dream doesn’t require becoming great at it. Sometimes it’s enough simply to discover that the dream itself was real.

III. A Lifetime of Listening

I have listened to music everyday for 38 years since 1988. Music is simply part of the furniture of my life. Like everyone else, there are genres I return to almost every day and genres I will never listen to again. Even so, with remarkably few exceptions, I can usually find at least one artist in almost every style that I genuinely admire. There are even bands—Genesis immediately comes to mind—that I respect enormously while almost never choosing to play them. Great musicianship and personal taste are not always the same thing, and I’ve become more comfortable with that distinction as I’ve gotten older.

Perhaps because I never learned to play an instrument as a child, I became obsessed with listening to music instead. By the time I was fourteen, I was spending every spare dollar I could scrape together on cassettes, and then, almost overnight, CDs when they replaced cassettes as the dominant medium. Looking back, I probably should have tried to some of my money. Instead, I spent virtually all of it on music.

I have absolutely no regrets.

Music became my education. It taught me geography, history, politics, religion, literature, relationships, heartbreak, humor, and more than a little philosophy. Long before streaming services provided almost every song ever recorded, discovering a great new band required effort. Somebody recommended them. You took a chance. You saved your money. You bought the record. If you loved it, it became part of your life.

Some artists from my teenage years have stayed with me. Others have not. This is OK with me.

The first cassette I ever bought with my own money was Martika’s self-titled debut. I haven’t listened to it in decades, but I don’t regret buying it for a second. It was the beginning of a lifetime spent chasing songs.

Soon enough my classmates introduced me to bands like R.E.M., the Violent Femmes and Fine Young Cannibals. Before long I discovered Bob Dylan and the Replacements on my own, and after that there was no turning back.

By the time I arrived at Hamilton College in the fall of 1992, I was already spending almost every extra dollar on music. That habit has never really gone away. Today my Spotify library contains thousands of liked songs spanning almost every genre imaginable.

By the time I arrived at Hamilton music had become a major part of my life. I was into artists such as Bob Dylan, the Replacements, The Pogues, Dire Straits, R.E.M, the Violent Femmes, and several others. Many of my favorite bands would soon come to be described as alternative or indie rock. Looking back, I was only beginning to scratch the surface.

One of roommates freshman year, Jake, loved music almost as much as I did, although his tastes tended to run in a more traditional direction. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Kinks were his touchstones, and before long they became mine as well. We spent countless hours listening to records in our quad, arguing over songs, recommending albums to one another, and gradually building the sort of musical vocabulary that only develops when people live together and have far too much free time.

Next door lived Ian Murphy. Ian remains one of my closest friends to this day, and he is the only person I have ever met who knows more about music than I do.

That is not a sentence I write lightly. I’ve spent most of my adult life buying and listening to records, reading about records, ranking records, writing about records, and generally annoying other people by going on and on about. Over the years I’ve accumulated many thousands of CDs and listened to what must be hundreds of thousands of songs. Music has never really been a hobby for me. It’s simply part of the way I move through the world.

Ian somehow manages to go even further. When we first met, he introduced me to an astonishing range of artists, many of whom I may not have discovered on my own. Luna immediately became one of my favorite bands of all time. He also pointed me toward the Auteurs, Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, This Mortal Coil, Ride, and dozens of other artists, particularly from Britain’s remarkable alternative scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Some of those bands became lifelong companions. Others I admired without ever fully embracing. All of them expanded my musical horizons.

What impressed me most, however, wasn’t simply the breadth of Ian’s knowledge. It was his curiosity.

Ian has always approached music the way an historian approaches a historical period or a scientist approaches a research question. He doesn’t merely listen to an artist. He disappears into them. If Nick Cave captures his imagination, he’ll spend months tracing every album, every collaboration, every side project, every live recording, and every obscure appearance he can find. More recently he’s done the same thing with classic country artists such as Merle Haggard and Steve Earle—a development that amuses me slightly, since I can still remember him gently teasing me about my own love of country back in college.

We continue to recommend records to each other today. I honestly can’t imagine what my musical life would look like if I’d never met him.

IV: Musical Genres I Like I Folk/ Americana

My favorite musical genre, without question, is folk music and its close cousin, Americana. Looking back, I suspect I know why.

When I was about six years old I discovered my parents’ tiny record collection. For reasons I still can’t explain, I pulled out an old folk compilation with the song “Big Rock Candy Mountain” on it. I played it over and over again in our living room. Not long afterwards I also found a Joan Baez record, and fell hopelessly in love with “Sweet Sunny South.” I had no idea what the lyrics meant. I just knew I wanted to hear the song again.


By about 2010, like many people as they begin to age, my ability to keep up with new bands began to wane somewhat. I did my best to keep up with the bands that I already knew and loved, however I found myself becoming less omnivorous in my listening. In the last couple of years, with the help of Spotify, I have endeavored to change this, and I’ve discovered dozens and dozens of new artists and bands that I really like.

Among my favourite folk and Americana artists are, in no particular order, Phosphorescent, Whiskeytown, Ryan Adams, Wilco, Uncle Tupelo and Conor Oberst.

I’ve only seen Phosphorescent and Wilco live. Whiskeytown no longer exists, Ryan Adams still tours, and Uncle Tupelo eventually split into Wilco and Son Volt. These days I probably listen to Son Volt more than I once did, but Wilco remains my favourite of the two.

I’ll never stop listening.

V: Musical Genres I Like II Indie

Alternative and indie rock became the soundtrack of my teenage years.

As I mentioned earlier, I inherited my classmates’ love of bands like R.E.M. and Violent Femmes. I discovered The Replacements on my own, and they remain one of my favourite bands of all time.

Some of my favourite indie artists today include Happiness, Daddy Issues, Giant Drag, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Afghan Whigs, Luna, Car Seat Headrest, Yo La Tengo, Seam and many others.

Like folk music, indie has been a constant companion for almost forty years. I can’t imagine that changing.

I also love jazz and ambient music, but those are enormous subjects that deserve essays of their own.

VI: Musical Genres I Do Not Like

Then there are the genres I do not like. Mainstream hard rock has never really appealed to me. Bon Jovi and Van Halen simply aren’t my thing. Grunge is more complicated. I admired what bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains are trying to doing, but I just don’t like him.


I don’t especially like heavy metal, although I do like several glam metal bands, probably because glam metal becoming popular, right when I was an early teenager and really listening to music for the first time. My favorite of these are Cinderella and Poison and I still have a soft spot Skid Row.

Then there is Progressive Rock or Prog. Prog and I have simply never gotten along.

Yes leaves me cold. Kansas does absolutely nothing for me. Toto has me running for the hills. And Genesis deserves special mention.

Many years ago I wrote what I thought was an entirely harmless one-star Amazon review of the Genesis album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. I assumed perhaps three people would read it. Apparently every Genesis fan on Earth was one of those three people.

The abuse began almost immediately. It turned out that among the hundreds of glowing reviews of the record, mine was the lone dissenting voice. For weeks strangers explained, in increasingly colorful language, exactly why I was an idiot. Eventually I deleted the review, not because I had changed my mind, but because I was just sick of the whole thing. I still don’t like the album.

VII. Evening: My Evolving Sexuality

Between about 7 and 10 PM I spent nearly three hours staring at what might have been the worst website ever designed.

It was supposedly the best escort aggregator in Osaka. It certainly aggregated everything. Hundreds of women. Dozens of agencies. Flashing banners. Pop-ups. Prices that changed the moment you clicked through. Every page had to be translated, and every time I went back it reverted to Japanese and I had to translate it again. After a while I wasn’t browsing anymore. I was wrestling with the website.

Eventually I admitted defeat.

The practical lesson was simple enough. If I wanted reasonable prices, I was probably going to have to get over my preference for outcalls and start looking at incalls instead. Fair enough. That was useful information. Three hours for one sentence.

Then, just as I was about to give up entirely, two completely unrelated things happened.

The first was my friend Doug in China. He messaged to say he’d finally finished my recently published novel The Adventures of The Thin Man and Andrea.

His note was everything a novelist hopes to hear. He hadn’t read it as “Matt playing the Thin Man.” He’d read it as a fully realized novel that happened to contain pieces of me. That was probably the single nicest compliment anyone could have paid me. I had been wandering around wondering whether the evening had been wasted, and suddenly it didn’t matter anymore. Doug had already given me something far better.

=====

When I was six and seven years old I was badly abused by my aunt’s first husband. I detail these experiences here. Childhood sexual abuse is the worst, and this fucking guy is simply the biggest dick imaginable. Fuck off.

It has taken me more than forty years to overcome some the effects of the abuse. This may seem like a long time ago, however this is just how CSA works. It sucks. So hard. One of the major effects was my eventual questioning of my sexuality. Around the time I hit puberty at 14 to the ago of 16 I wondered if I was gay. I was deeply attracted to girls, however the gay idea was never far from my mind.

By the time I was sixteen I had begun dating girls, however awkwardly, and my thoughts that I might be gay gradually faded into the background.

Throughout my marriage, two affairs, and a few other relationships, I remained consistently attracted to women. I never seriously thought of myself as gay. Even so, the question never disappeared entirely. It simply became quieter.

A few years ago I found myself occasionally turning to pornography featuring trans women. My favorite actress is Daisy Taylor, who is so gorgeous and whose picture leads this essay. It isn’t perhaps my favorite genre, but I kept returning to it often enough that I eventually stopped dismissing it as a curiosity.

Eventually mere curiosity became practical curiosity. Over the past six weeks I have booked four escorts here in Osaka, all biological women. Tonight, I found myself browsing agencies that advertised trans women.

The first woman that caught my eye was Mio. She was purely feminine in appearance and was absolutely stunning. Sadly however, she was working in a different city and not available in Osaka tonight.

Then I saw Takane. She was also very beautiful, and looked like a women, however perhaps ever so slightly androgynous. Three years earlier I probably would have clicked away without another thought. This time I found myself thinking, why not?

Then I remembered the great John McAfee, the software pioneer who is totally outta control. Years ago, while happily disappearing down one of my periodic McAfee rabbit holes, I came across an interview—I think it was an interview, although it may have been buried somewhere in the fragments of the autobiography he never finished.

The interviewer asked him about dating trans women in Thailand. Were they actually woman, the interviewer asked?

McAfee shrugged it off.

“Dude,” he said, “trust me. They’re all woman.” Hilarious.

Whether you agree with him or not isn’t really the point. For some reason, trying to book a trans escort in my hotel room years later, that line floated back into my head.

So I rolled the dice, as I sometimes do, and called her agency. Not because I had reached some grand philosophical conclusion. Because curiosity had quietly outrun hesitation. I was ready to spend more than I’d planned and just see what happened. The guy from the agency quoted me the real outcall price. Thirty-three thousand yen. That ended the experiment rather quickly. I thanked him and said I would call him another if I changed my mind.

VII. Am I Bisexual?

Today, I think I may simply be naturally bisexual. Whether my abuse obscured this truth, complicated my understanding of it, or is largely unrelated, I cannot honestly say.

What I can say is, my sexuality seems to be evolving rather quickly. I really have no idea where this attraction to trans woman is coming, however I do know that I will need to do something sometime soon.

Dedication:

For Takane. And for John McAfee. Baby, you are totally outta control. But man are you funny. Dude, you rock. So damn hard.