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On My Seven Years Under Dr. Charles Fox

Give me weed, whites, and wine

— Little Feat

I. Arrival, Trust, and First Cracks (2012–2013)

Our former principal Shiozaki sensei retired at the end of the 2011–2012 school year. He left on time, at sixty, having overseen just one International School Festival (ISF), in February 2012, and then stepping away. His departure was orderly, expected, and clean.

Not long after, my colleague Tomoko Wano and I were called into the small room next to the IB office by Mr. Higashitani, who was my direct supervisor at the time. I was still DPC then, not yet formally on the administration, though much of my work already extended beyond that role.

Higashitani told us the next principal would be Charles Fox, a literature professor from Ritsumeikan University. Then, almost casually, he added that Fox would be taking the first two weeks of the April term off to travel to the Ogasawara Islands to help his son with a documentary film.

Higashitani paused. “Is this going to work with this guy?” he asked.

It was not really a question. The decision had already been made. Fox was close to the Chancellor, and with the IB programme growing, it had been decided that it was time for a foreign principal. The appointment carried symbolic weight.

Fox arrived in April 2012.

That first year, I saw him several times a week. I went to his office regularly with issues, proposals, and requests. He came less often to the IB office, but he was visible, present, and accessible. Compared to later years, he felt engaged.

We were still very much in a building phase. Questions were fundamental rather than cosmetic: whether to bring Economics online as an IB subject, how to structure growth, how to manage staffing, how to align IB operations with a larger Japanese institution that had not fully internalized what the IB actually demanded.

Fox was generally supportive. When I raised ideas, he rarely opposed them outright. But he almost always deferred decisions upward. In practice, that meant deferring to Higashitani occasionally, but increasingly to Vice Principal Nishikawa, who was locked in a long, escalating struggle with Higashitani for control of the soul of the school. That battle would define the institution for years.

Two small things I noticed early on.

The first was small but persistent. When Fox felt pressed, uncertain, or cornered, he would drop into a performative Texas drawl: “I’m just a good old boy…I don’t know…I’m new here…” Week one, maybe. Month one, even. But it went on for months. It began to feel less like humility and more like evasion.

The second was subtler. When Fox gave speeches—opening ceremonies, graduations, addresses to the IB community—he often began by explaining that he would speak in both English and Japanese, and why. “Today I will speak in both English and Japanese. There is a reason for that. The reason is that we are a bilingual school.” He would frame bilingualism as a principle rather than simply inhabiting it.

This bothered me in a way I couldn’t quite fully articulate. Later, I would understand it clearly: real bi-cultural schools don’t justify bilingualism. They operationalize it. They have bilingual admissions, bilingual HR support, bilingual communications, bilingual crisis protocols. We had none of those things. Bilingualism existed largely at the level of speech, not structure.

The first real test came with the February 2012 ISF.

Shiozaki had spearheaded the 2011 ISF, and it had been a success. Fox was enthusiastic about repeating it, but he largely stepped back and allowed me and my team to run it. The school green-lit the budget again, and I decided to push hard—to expand, improve, and professionalize the event.

We housed everyone at Ritsumeikan BKC: our students, overseas students, overseas chaperones, Tomoko, Hashizume from our office, and myself—around 150 people in total. Some seniors had smaller rooms, but most students were housed in large shared dorm rooms: one for boys, one for girls.

It was a mistake. An obvious one, in retrospect.

Alcohol made its way in. Boundaries failed. Tomoko and I were housed in another wing entirely, and we had effectively left the students unchaperoned overnight.

The next morning, seniors came to us immediately with a full report. We called Scott, the seniors’ homeroom teacher, at six in the morning. He drove to BKC right away.

We triaged. Scott and Tomoko lectured the seniors while I ran the open mic. We separated students where we had to, called the relevant parents. Tomoko warned me that if the school heard too much too fast, they might shut the entire event down. That felt impossible to me, so we managed carefully. We called Higashitani and Fox at school around nine. Higashitani came immediately. Fox did not. He came only for the opening and closing ceremonies.

The incident was handled. There was a discipline process. Several students were suspended at the very end of term. Fox signed off on the outcome.

But I was underwhelmed. The failure had been predictable, and leadership was thin where it mattered.

By the end of 2012, the IB programme moved from an effectively open budget to a fixed annual one. I was writing policy constantly, with Tomoko translating. Documents were often finalized hours before steering meetings. Higashitani scrambled to understand them and asked for revisions between noon and four every week.

It was exhausting for everyone.

In 2013, mostly to help Higashitani, I was promoted to shukan, the junior most position on the senior administration. That year, I had two dreams—one about a train line I couldn’t quite navigate, another about being pinned inside a roller coaster that led not to thrill but to scrutiny. At the time, I read them as anxiety dreams. Later, I would recognize them as early diagnostics.

II. Competence Without Authority (2014–2015)

2014

By 2014, the rhythms of my work were established.

OD was fully in place as DPC. I traveled extensively for IBEN and with Higashitani and Fox. We were deep in negotiations with KIS over a range of matters that required patience, translation, and careful calibration. Much of the work took place in airports, hotel lobbies, and conference rooms where decisions were floated, withdrawn, and reshaped.

The pace was familiar now. Demanding, but no longer novel.

That year, Fox, Tim Chanecka, and I traveled together to OACAC in Tampa. It was a routine professional trip in the way such things often are: panels, receptions, conversations that blurred together by the second evening. The work itself wasn’t remarkable. What stayed with me happened in transit.

On the flight from Tampa to Washington, D.C., a situation developed that required de-escalation. A man—angry, agitated, and self-certain—was fixated on another passenger he described as a “long-haired liberal.” The grievance was incoherent but intense. It carried the unmistakable energy of someone looking for permission to act.

I intervened.

Not dramatically. Not heroically. I spoke to him, listened long enough to drain the pressure, redirected the conversation, and kept things moving. The moment passed. The flight landed. Nothing happened.

I’ve written about that encounter elsewhere, in Good and Great Talkers, because it captures something I’ve learned over time: that institutions, like planes, often rely on informal actors to maintain order when formal authority is either absent or ill-suited to the moment.

That was 2014.

The work continued. The travel continued. The system functioned. And once again, responsibility lived in the spaces between roles, titles, and official scripts.

2015

From the outside, 2015 looked like continuity.

OD announced in July that he would be leaving, though his departure would stretch on quietly into the following year. In the meantime, the work continued much as before. I remained shukan. Meetings accumulated. Travel continued. IBEN assignments filled gaps in the calendar. We were still deep in negotiations with KIS and other external partners. Nothing felt broken.

At the same time, a new part-time role was added to support a sensitive function. The intent was reasonable. The arrangement informal. Oversight was assumed rather than specified. No one believed this was risky. There was no sense of urgency around it, no raised voices, no formal concern. It entered the system quietly and was treated as such.

That year, David Stubbs was promoted internally to DPC. At the time, it seemed like a good move. I supported it and gave my blessing. Continuity mattered, and internal promotions suggested stability. OD’s long exit thinned leadership gradually rather than dramatically, but again, nothing yet appeared out of order.

The IBEN work continued to provide a counterpoint. Most engagements went as expected. One did not.

It was a pre-authorization engagement with Eton House in China—one of those schools grafted onto an English name without a substantive institutional connection to it. From the beginning, the situation was fragile. The designated DPC, Georgina, was out of her depth. She tried, but early Skype calls revealed fundamental gaps in understanding. The Principal micro-managed aggressively while showing little grasp of IB philosophy or process. A capable Vice Principal carried most of the operational load.

On one scheduled Skype call, I arrived ten minutes late. It was my fault. By the time I logged on, they had already left. A complaint followed. I apologized.

Shortly afterward, Georgina took the unusual step of traveling to Kyoto to seek my guidance in person. We met at a restaurant. She explained that her situation was impossible. Money was tight. Every expenditure required approval from a board chair who was rarely present. I sympathized. I gave her everything I could—practical advice, institutional context, and clarity.

The process continued. I raised concerns about funding and received pushback, but the school agreed to give Georgina limited autonomy over small expenditures. Then a more serious issue surfaced: there was no class schedule. The school had an idea of offerings but no timetable. I told them plainly that this would result in a Matter to Be Addressed—the strongest possible language in a pre-authorization report.

The Principal and Georgina said producing a schedule was impossible. The Vice Principal stopped the conversation and said he could do it overnight. He did.

With a schedule in place, the authorization eventually went through. Georgina left, likely before teaching began. Later, the school complained about me to the IB. I heard about it unofficially and acknowledged that it had been a difficult assignment. The system absorbed the friction. Life moved on.

That summer, my psyche was working as hard as I was.

On August 15, 2015, I had a dream:

I am in college (probably) or at least in a position to have a dorm room. This room is shared and I have a second room which is mine alone and in another building. Whether or not I really should have the second room is not clear, and perhaps because of this I cherish the private room. I have had this kind of set up in dreams before. The private room is well apportioned and clean. I go in and out a few times, and then one time I enter the room next door by accident. My key opens the door and immediately I realize this is not my room. The room is sparse. I leave and enter my room.

There is a new bed in the room and some of my things have been moved around. There are at first two people, an African guy maybe in his early twenties and another guy. The second guy explains that the African has been assigned to this room and that he is a refugee from the genocide in Ghana. There doesn’t seem to be a lot I can say to this so I suggest some changes to the room layout that they had set up and we make the changes. I am not happy about having a roommate however realize that this feeling is selfish in the situation and resolve to make the best of it and welcome the newcomer.

However, when I turn around deeper in the room there are two more people, Americans, a guy and a girl, on the floor eating. They are beginning to generate some garbage which they are throwing on the floor. I bend down to pick up the garbage, smiling an apology that I like to keep things neat. I do not want them to be there and don’t know where they came from.

Back toward the door the African is sitting next to a man from Albania who is shooting heroin. He may be a Roma, which for some reason I know will make stopping him more difficult. Over and over, slowly and competently. This is not good and I start strategizing how to move him out of my room. He is talking and is charismatic, however I am anxious about what will happen if he keeps taking the drug and also anxious that my African roommate will become influenced by him and start using. The whole situation seems to be verging out of my control. I consider the alternative of just ditching the room.

I didn’t analyze the dream at the time. I didn’t need to. I kept working.

Nothing yet appeared out of order.

III. Peak Without Leadership (2016–Mid-2017)

2016

In 2016, the school appeared to be thriving.

The part-time counselor was fully embedded and doing the job as defined. There were no formal complaints, no escalations, no indications that anything was wrong. Looking back, there were clues—but they were faint, contextual, and easily explained away at the time. Nothing rose to the level of alarm.

For me, the year was defined by expansion elsewhere.

My IBEN work intensified significantly. By this point I was working closely with Gill Pressland, who had become the IBEN manager for Asia-Pacific and had effectively taken over my portfolio from Avi Nanda. Avi worked in a different section of the IB organization; Gill was IBEN proper. Around this time, the IB underwent a global restructuring, and IBEN—by extension Gill—emerged with considerably more influence.

Gill was a force. Decisive, demanding, and deeply competent.

Within three years of joining IBEN, I was promoted to Lead Educator for the International Baccalaureate, one of only a handful in the region. I worked frequently with Duan Yorke, and together we handled a large volume of Diploma Programme assignments. Through this work I came to know—directly or indirectly—hundreds of IB educators. My professional network widened rapidly, and my authority in those spaces was clear and functional.

The contrast with home was increasingly stark.

Back at Ritsumeikan Uji, the long-running struggle between Nishikawa and Higashitani finally resolved. Nishikawa won. Power consolidated decisively. From that point on, the school ran flat out, with virtually every decision flowing through him.

Nishikawa was a strong leader. He worked relentlessly. He also had too much to do, and some decisions became personalized by necessity rather than design. The system no longer absorbed pressure; it transmitted it downward.

By then, Fox had become largely ceremonial. Even his speeches were written elsewhere. He attended functions, delivered remarks, and fulfilled representational duties, but operational authority no longer resided with him in any meaningful way. He felt, increasingly, like an afterthought.

We held our final International School Festival in February 2016, closing out the prior academic cycle. After that, there was no budget for me to develop or run future iterations. The festival ended not with conflict, but with quiet disappearance.

Outside the school, my life continued to widen.

I was active in the global Enneagram community and attended at least one conference that year. I was also involved with the International Mental Health Professionals of Japan, and despite not being a trained counselor, I became vice-president of the organization—another example of being entrusted with responsibility in spaces where clarity and judgment mattered more than formal credentialing.

That year, my son entered Ritsumeikan Uji as a seventh grader.

This changed my vantage point. I became more attuned to the junior high school and the International Preparatory Stream. My son did well academically, but his cohort experienced social and behavioral turbulence. I stayed lightly involved, careful to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. I watched more than I intervened.

The year ended smoothly. We graduated one of our largest IB cohorts to date. The programme was booming. Outcomes were strong. On paper, the institution was succeeding.

And yet, by the end of 2016, something essential had shifted.

2017 (Before the Break)

From the outside, 2017 looked like a peak year.

The programme was doing exceptionally well. Both the high school and junior high school streams were booming. Applications outpaced available spaces. We had decisively outperformed our nearest competitor, DISK — not marginally, but structurally — in outcomes, coherence, and momentum. Internally, this was understood. I had written about it. The data supported it.

There was no sense of institutional fragility. If anything, the opposite.

By this point, Fox had receded almost entirely into the background. He continued to fulfill ceremonial duties — speeches, appearances, the visible rhythms of a principal — and he looked the part. But operationally, he was absent. He took long lunches with the other vice principal (not Nishikawa), read the paper, and watched Texas Rangers games at work. From my vantage point, he had checked out.

What struck me was not his disengagement, but its invisibility. No one else seemed to register it. The institution continued to function smoothly enough that absence did not yet register as absence.

In practice, Nishikawa ran the school outright. Every meaningful decision flowed through him. This had been the case for some time, and by 2017 I had fully adapted to it. I took issues to him directly. He decided. The system was centralized, efficient, and under constant load.

I continued to travel extensively for the IB, working closely with Gill Pressland and handling a heavy slate of IBEN assignments. It would not have been inaccurate to say that I was holding two full-time roles simultaneously: one inside the school, one across the region. Both demanded attention. Both relied on judgment rather than formal authority.

And still, nothing appeared wrong.

The counselor role functioned as designed. There were no complaints, no escalations, no formal concerns. In hindsight, there were clues — small irregularities, moments that now read differently — but at the time they did not cohere. They were explainable. They were ignorable. They did not trigger alarms.

The system was succeeding. Leadership was diffuse but intact. Results were strong.

Which is precisely why what came next was so destabilizing.

IV. Rupture, Silence, Exit (Late 2017–2018)

The break arrived as confusion first.

Late one night in October 2017, I received a panicked call that made no sense. The next days revealed something far worse than anything we had imagined. Documentation removed ambiguity. The counselor was dismissed immediately and barred from further contact.

I issued the announcement myself—an error I recognize now.

In December, I learned she was still contacting students. Fox had promised to intervene directly if that happened. He did not. Partial measures followed.

January–April 2018 (V)

By January, our options were limited.

We hired a new university counselor, Nina, who had been working at an IB school in Nagoya. She eased into the role gradually. Tomoko and I did what we could to mentor her. She managed the relational aspects of the job reasonably well, but struggled with formal written communication in both English and Japanese. As a result, I remained deeply involved in university counseling.

The work continued.

When the new school year began in April, the pressure shifted.

A group of parents complained — not about outcomes, but about process. They argued that we had failed to protect the former counselor from what they described as an unreasonable parent, and questioned what was being done about university counseling more broadly.

I told Fox that we had already held a comprehensive meeting in January. All deadlines and procedures had been reviewed. There was no scheduled group meeting for April because nothing new needed to be communicated.

Fox said the parents needed reassurance and asked that we meet them anyway.

We did.

Fox and I drafted a set of twenty talking points together. They reiterated what had already been said in January. They clarified that families were free to work with external counselors, with one explicit exception. They also stated that the former counselor had agreed, as a condition of her departure, not to meet with students.

I read the talking points word for word.

The parents recorded the meeting. The recording was sent to the compliance department of the Ritsumeikan Trust, along with a request that Tomoko and I be dismissed.

At that point, the asymmetry was complete. I was constrained by institutional responsibility and confidentiality. The former counselor was not. Her version of events circulated freely. Mine could not.

I was formally notified of the complaint by Fox.

I was upset — not by the existence of a complaint, which I understood as an occupational risk — but by what it represented. I told him plainly that we had drafted the talking points together, that I had followed them exactly, and that I had repeatedly been placed on the front line at his request while he remained absent.

I told him that it was time for him to speak up for me.

He said there was nothing he could do. That the matter was now in the hands of compliance. That we would have to wait and see what happened.

That was the moment our relationship ended.

Not because of disagreement, but because of abdication.

What remained after that was procedural. Whatever trust had existed between us did not recover.

In late July, I served as lead trainer at a major IBEN engagement in Bali. It went extremely well. Whatever insecurity I had had about the IBEN role dissolved.

In August I went to John Innes’ wedding in the United States and after that I went to the Faculty of Astrological Studies (FAS) Summer School at Exeter College in Oxford. While there I met Isobel and everything just cracked open. Everything I had been carrying surfaced at once.

I returned to Japan and submitted a resignation letter to Fox stating plainly that I could not work under leadership that did not prioritize child safety. He buried it.

I stepped down in practice. I moved my desk. I stopped attending meetings. I began writing. This blog was born.

In October, early decision chaos erupted again. Fox ordered another teacher to verify deadlines already confirmed. I lost my temper—twice. It was the lowest point of my professional life.

After early admissions, I stopped counseling. In November, I stopped teaching. In December, I traveled to the U.S. and breathed again.

In February, I accepted a position at Ritsumeikan Suzaku. It wasn’t a teaching position, and I was not happy there, a story I’ll tell later.

The Fox era, for me, was over.

Coda and Reflection

Here’s the thing. I wanted to respect Dr. Fox. I really did.

He was my senpai—the one who came before. Like me, he arrived in Japan young and built a life here. I don’t know his full context. What was possible? What was unsayable? Those questions remain.

I don’t doubt that he cared or worked hard at times. But by 2016 at the latest, he was a man out of time. His mental map no longer matched the territory, and he did not do the work to update it.

Schools are living systems. Leadership requires vigilance, reflection, and relentless self-critique. Willingness is not readiness.

My hope—my prayer—is that when my own time comes, I do better than my senpai. That I reflect. That I adjust. That I remember the map is not the territory. And if I can’t, that I step aside.

That is the standard I now hold myself to.

Dedication: For all those who came before.

Note: If you enjoyed this piece you may also enjoy my piece on my former Principal, Dr. Fox. It touches on some of the same themes of institutional malpractice. You can read it here.

https://thekyotokibbitzer.wordpress.com/2026/02/25/on-the-sarah-lawrence-kids-my-take/
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On My Brother’s Mike’s Second Wedding

Epigraph

“All we need is just a little patience.”
— Guns N’ Roses

I. Leaving Anyway

The wedding was in June, which was just a little inconvenient for me. School was still in session, and I had to miss work to go. I remember wishing that it had been in August. But once I decided I was going, the resistance fell away. I locked it in, and then I was genuinely excited—mostly to see family.

I hadn’t seen my mom, Mike, or Pat since January 2018, before COVID. I hadn’t seen my dad since October of that year. That mattered more to me than the logistics or the calendar. So my wife Sachie and I flew from Japan to Seattle, and my son Hugh flew in separately from New Zealand, via Auckland and Los Angeles.

We landed at Sea-Tac and cleared international arrivals quickly. We had a few hours before my parents arrived to pick us up. They had rented a van, partly because it was a three-day event and partly because they were making breakfast on the last morning, which required equipment. While we waited, Sachie and I sat in the only open area we could find outside arrivals. We both needed a cigarette, so we took turns—one of us watching the bags while the other smoked. We bought two Starbucks coffees, which cost sixteen dollars. I ordered an extra shot in each, not realizing the Americanos already contained doubles.

While we were there, a man nearby was clearly overdosing—probably fentanyl, maybe heroin. He was nodding, drooling. The police came first, then EMTs. They all knew him by name. Sylvester. After about an hour, they took him away on a stretcher. No one around reacted much. It felt routine. I was just sad, thinking about how much damage fentanyl has done in the U.S.

I texted my mom. They were running late. Hugh arrived through domestic customs and joined us. When my parents finally came, they looked good—just older, of course. We hugged and walked back through the airport to the van. My dad had forgotten where he’d parked it, so that took a while too.

Once we got moving, things settled. Sachie, Hugh, and I loaded into the van and drove north to Anacortes, about two and a half hours. It was mid-afternoon. Hugh slept most of the way. Conversation came easily. It felt natural, like time hadn’t broken anything, just stretched it.

We had an early dinner at a restaurant on the water in Anacortes. Pat and Sarah drove up from Portland with their three girls and joined us. John Innes and Kristi had been invited but were tired from the drive and didn’t come. I had raw oysters, another seafood dish, and a margarita. My dad ordered one beer and then told the server, “Please bring another one in exactly twelve minutes.” He always does this. He usually has two beers this way; that day he had a third later. I find the whole thing funny.

I ordered a second drink—a Negroni, which wasn’t on the menu. The waitress said she thought the bartender could figure it out. It arrived with no ice. I considered sending it back but she was busy, so I let it go.

It was sunny. I sat in the sun so Sachie could have the shade. After dinner, Pat, Hugh, the two older girls, and I walked down over some stones to the water for a while. Then we went to a supermarket for beer, wine, and light provisions. I wasn’t sure how I’d sleep—I don’t always sleep well when traveling—so I bought a bottle of wine just in case.

We drove to the lodge where we were staying. It was really nice. Sachie, Hugh, and I had our own apartment. I took a walk behind the lodge to sneak a cigarette. Sachie probably found somewhere to smoke too, but I’m not sure.

Later that evening, we went down to Pat’s room for beers. The girls played on the lawn outside, and Pat chased them around until they were breathless and laughing. Watching him with them, I was struck again by what a great dad he is. I drank wine instead of beer—I was still dealing with a lingering COVID hangover and a newer gluten intolerance—and eventually drifted off and fell asleep on the couch.

That was the first night.

II. Crossing Over

In the morning, I woke first. No one else was up yet. Eventually my mom got up too, and we drove back to the supermarket for coffee. She bought me a pair of sunglasses—nothing fancy, just functional—and it was good to have time with her, talking at length. The coffee place sold Turkish coffee and tried to upsell me on baklava, which I regretted again not being able to eat because of gluten.

We all had breakfast later. It was underwhelming. I had yogurt. Around eleven, we drove out to the ferry terminal and got into a long line of cars. Sarah handed me one of those popular sparkling drinks in the U.S.—sweet, artificial—and I couldn’t finish it. The wrong kind of sweet.

On the ferry, I fell asleep. People were working on puzzles at tables. My parents stood outside because my mom has vertigo and gets dizzy. When we arrived at Friday Harbor, we went straight to the supermarket. There was no food at the camp except the rehearsal dinner and the wedding dinner, so I stocked up: hummus, corn chips—my mom handed me a huge bag of them—cheese, olives. I also had some soup at the market, which was excellent. I tried to get as much as I could because I knew options would be limited. I also bought wine.

The drive to the camp was supposed to be ten minutes, but the sign was tiny and we missed it. We overshot the turn and had to double back using Google Maps. We arrived mid-afternoon.

The camp was down a dirt road off the highway and much larger than I expected. There was a main lodge, a big lawn, a collection of cabins in different shapes and sizes, a barn where the wedding would be held, and a garden set up for the rehearsal dinner. We used metal push carts to haul our things from the parking lot to the cabins.

My parents were staying in the main lodge. Our cabin was about 150 meters away, next to Pat’s family. It was clean but very small: a tiny kitchen, a bedroom, a cramped closet you could barely move around in, a loft for Hugh, and a bathroom awkwardly placed between the kitchen and the bedroom. Kelly, his wife Courtney, and their kids Jacob and Ang were in another cabin. John and Kristi were nearby as well. Mason was staying in some kind of shared space. Between our cabin and Pat’s was a fire pit, and Sarah had already hung laundry over the chairs.

Smoking was allowed, but only at a few designated ashtrays—those tall black plastic ones on poles. The signs said that if you littered, the fine was one thousand dollars per cigarette butt.

I was a little concerned about whether the food I’d bought would last. I ate chips and hummus. Sachie went into the woods to smoke and put her cigarette butts on top of our garbage can. I told her about the rule and asked her to use the ashtray instead. She did.

Later, we gathered at the lodge. I brought wine. One of the camp staff asked if we wanted to hear the house rules. Mike said, “Lay them on us.” The rule was one open drink at a time in the lodge. It closed at ten, but we could use the nearby fire pits and deck afterward. I put my bottle of wine out of sight. Mike responded to the rule with a polite “Uh-huh, sure,” and I got the impression he had no intention of following it.

My dad, Hugh, and I drove back into town to pick up pizza for dinner. I ordered a cauliflower-crust pizza because of my gluten intolerance. We ordered too much—one pizza each plus one for my mom and Sachie—but that was fine. We ate, talked, and I drank wine. Mike, Colleen, and Felix were there. Colleen took Felix to bed. Later, Sachie asked me to go back to the cabin to get a bottle of white wine. I did, and we drank it. The rule wasn’t enforced. It was a relaxed evening.

That was also when I saw Eric Hillyard for the first time.

III. The FIRST NIGHT AND NEXT MORNING

Eric Hillyard is a character and a half. He’s one of Mike’s good friends from high school at Saint George’s, and one of only two people from that era who were there. The other was Dan Clarke—known as Jerry—who was officiating the wedding. Eric didn’t have a formal role. He didn’t need one.

I gave Eric a big hug when I saw him. I hadn’t seen him since high school. He razzes Mike like nobody else, but he was polite and warm with me and bowed to Sachie. He was drinking quite a bit. After ten, my parents went to bed, and Eric, Mike, and I gathered around the fire pit between the cabins.

Eric smoked a cigarette. I smoked two. We tossed them into the fire pit. Later, back at the cabin, it occurred to me that the cigarettes probably wouldn’t burn up completely. I was pretty cooked, but I walked back in the dark with my phone light, dug around in the ashes, found all three cigarette butts, and put them in the ashtray. I figured I’d just saved Mike and Colleen three thousand dollars.

Eric had told a joke that landed too close to home with Mike. Mike said it went too far. I got the impression this wasn’t the first time. It didn’t blow up, but it didn’t land well either.

I went to bed. Sachie and Hugh were already asleep. I slept fine.

The next morning I woke up first again. I ate more hummus and corn chips and went down to the lodge for coffee to see who was around. Free coffee was available. It was rehearsal day.

I don’t remember much of the day before the rehearsal itself. Earlier, when Hugh and I had gone into town on the pizza run, we’d stopped at a hardware store and bought a frisbee. Hugh played with the little kids—Colleen’s brother’s kids and others—on the lawn. I mostly hung around. Food was running low, and I was looking forward to dinner, which was scheduled for around five.

Before dinner there were family pictures, but before that something happened that I didn’t witness directly. Mike told me about it afterward.

They had hired a photographer, a makeup artist, and a band. All freelancers. The food was provided by the camp staff. Colleen was getting her makeup done and had asked for it to be light. Apparently it wasn’t. Mike saw it and said, “Babe, she pancaked you.” Colleen initially wanted to let it go, but they talked and then fired the makeup artist on the spot. Mike told me about it calmly and said that decision was kind of on him.

I didn’t judge it. What I found myself wondering was how much of her fee she got paid. I didn’t ask. I assumed she was paid for the day. The photographer had traveled a long way. I didn’t know whether the makeup artist was local. I hoped she was.

That evening, people gathered in the garden. Both sides of my family were there, along with Eric, Jerry, Mason, Kelly, John Innes, and others, as well as Colleen’s friends and family. The mood was good. But John was in bad shape.

By his own admission, John was pretty depressed. Both his parents had died, and something unresolved involving his father had happened before his death. He hadn’t been able to say goodbye properly. He’d had to have a few just to get ready to come to dinner and face people.

John and Kristi left early and Mason and I walked to the parking lot for a cigarette. There were ashtrays there, and I didn’t want to risk a fine. Colleen’s friends were smoking weed cigarettes back in the garden. Mason told me about a recent breakup that had been serious. He said he’d been immature for a long time and that the relationship and life had forced him to grow up. From his demeanor, it was clear that was true.

That night I also saw my Uncle Jeff’s third wife for the first time—she is from Mexico. Hugh talked with Jeff about his soccer influencer work. Jeff was impressed and invited Hugh to stay at his place in California anytime, for any length of time. Hugh was flattered and grateful.

Things wrapped up early. There was no repeat of the fire pit scene from the night before. I talked a lot with Amy, but mostly I was with Mason. Then we went back to the cabin and went to bed.

IV. DAN CLARKE/ BILL CLARKE DREAM

Wedding day morning felt like more of the same. I was low on cigarettes. I ate more corn chips and hummus from the seemingly endless bag and got coffee in the lodge and waited. Jerry was around. We talked. He’s had an interesting life—some wildness there—and I could see why Mike likes him so much.

Dan Clarke’s father is Bill Clarke, brother of Janet Mann and brother-in-law of Paul Mann. All Saint George’s power brokers. My dad and Bill Clarke were friendly once, but it went sideways. After that, my dad would complain about him endlessly in the car to my mom. Typical Ross behavior at the time, although I never understood the core issue

At some point that morning I thought about a dream I had years earlier, one that has stuck with me. I’m including it here as I wrote it at the time.

2/27/18:

Two intersecting and yet separate dreams about Bill Clark. These will take some unpacking.

I. I am with my father and someone else in a car on a rainy day. We are parked and Bill Clark is there. He looks like the real Bill Clark as I remember him, overweight and not too smooth. Bill Clark was an intermittent arch-enemy and then sometimes ally of my father at Saint George’s in the 90s. The encounter in the car is the culmination of several encounters with Bill in the dream and some of these have been just he and I. Bill is telling me through these encounters how much he admires our IB program and what I am doing with it. He stresses how important it is that I keep going. At the car, he does this again and looks a little desperate. Because he is so clearly sincere even my father who was his enemy gives him the space to say his piece. For my part, I am grateful for his kind words however the car kind of needs to get moving. I thank him from the window. I think he is about to get wet from the rain.

II. I am meeting with Bill Clark again, however a very different looking Bill Clark. Here he is trim with a wire grey beard cut short and a nice suit. He looks very distinguished and a little intimidating. This Bill Clark is also supportive however is much more firm with me. He tells me that I need to get on my hands and knees and beg and plead for resources. Somehow I get the image of a turtle on its back, open to the sky. This is the posture I need to adopt according to Bill. Nothing can be taken for granted and I have to beg. He is quite clear and I understand the wisdom in what he says.

Comment: This is a super interesting dream that bears unpacking. The two Bill Clarks are polar opposites and the second one is more regal and correct in every way. Why the former enemy of my father? This dream is so packed with symbolism.

Not long after that, it was time to shift gears and get ready for the ceremony.

V. The Ceremony

Before the ceremony began, I practiced rope-tying with Colleen’s brother and Pat. I hadn’t mentioned it earlier, but I had been enlisted to help tie Mike and Colleen’s hands together at the end of the ceremony. I was nervous. I had to go first, and as with the e. e. cummings poem years earlier at Mike’s first weeding, I had limited information. Mike told me it would be fine. Colleen’s brother Kevin and I made a joke of it together. Don’t fuck the whole wedding, bro. We got on well.

The rope was thin. There were several strands, intertwined.

Around four, people gathered again at the lodge. Only certain people had drinks. The rehearsal had gone smoothly. We had a clear walk-out order. My family walked out right after Mike and Colleen so I could be in the front row and step forward when it was my turn.

Everyone took their places. Jerry gave a classic, funny speech about being unprepared. Mike’s vows were sincere. Colleen received a huge round of applause when she walked out.

The ceremony was short. The moment came quickly. I stepped forward and did the tying. The ropes were longer than I expected and hung down toward the ground. I stumbled and nearly tripped over them, but I didn’t fall. Thank God.

The ceremony ended, and we moved directly into the barn for dinner.

VI. The WEDDING DINNER

Dinner started with oysters and a watermelon margarita, which I passed on. I drank red wine and hit it pretty hard. Dinner proper was pasta with sauce made by Colleen’s dad. I couldn’t eat it. I was hungry and ate oysters until there were literally none left. I got the last ones.

I spent some time standing outside with Kelly and his kids, Jacob and Ang. We talked. Inside, I sat with family. Hugh had the pasta and then went over to Colleen’s father to thank him for the sauce, which was a classy move.

After dinner, Kelly, Mason, Sachie, and I went out back for a cigarette. I was out and bummed one from Sachie, and it was the first time I’d ever seen Kelly smoke. I got to know Jacob, who was almost done with high school, and Ang, who was a couple of years younger.

I was wiped and left early. Sachie and Hugh came back later. Colleen’s dad gave a speech. My dad didn’t. Katie—my cousin through Amy—gave a great speech. Katie has Down syndrome, and everyone applauded.

That was the night.

VII. Dispersal

The next morning my parents were making breakfast, and the relatives who had stayed in town came back for it. My mom was prepping food. Amy brought gluten-free bagels. I had half a bagel, some fruit, and coffee and talked with people as they moved in and out. Breakfast was a performance, and it justified the van rental entirely.

We packed up and said goodbye to Mike, Colleen, and Felix. They were heading to a nearby island for a short honeymoon. From there, we drove first to the rental house where Pam and Steve were staying. I did laundry while everyone else went whale watching. I was keyed up about it—laundry had accumulated, and I don’t like traveling with dirty clothes. The door was left open, so I walked to the market for more soup and found my way back.

That evening we went back to the same pizza place. I had another cauliflower-crust pizza, a gluten-free beer that was just okay, and a glass of wine. I sat with Amy, her husband David, Sachie, Hugh, and Katie. I paid attention to Katie—she’s been developing early-onset dementia and I wanted to see how she was doing. My mom paid for dinner, which I appreciated.

We stayed at a hotel five minutes away that my parents had pre-booked. It was a large suite. Sachie and I took one room, my parents took the other, and Hugh slept on a cot in the living room. Hugh, my dad, and I played shuffleboard downstairs. I won. It was very relaxed. I had what was left of a small bottle of vodka, drank some, and poured the rest out.

The next morning we went to the ferry terminal. We ran into Jeff’s family again. My parents talked with them while Sachie, Hugh, and I got coffee and bought chocolates as omiyage. On the ferry back, a young naturalist gave a talk about whales. I listened and didn’t fall asleep this time.

Once we reached Anacortes, we drove the wrong way for about half an hour before my dad realized it. We turned around and headed toward Sea-Tac, staying near the airport. I was starving. We said goodbye to my parents. I cried a little. My mom did too.

At three in the afternoon we went straight to a steakhouse. I had steak, fries, and a Negroni. Hugh and Sachie ate as well. We sat in the regular dining section, not the bar, because Hugh was still twenty. We slept early.

The next morning we took a bus to the airport. Hugh left earlier, and Sachie went with him while I tried to sleep. At the airport, Sachie wanted to buy a specific bottle of whisky as a gift. The plane was already boarding. She ran off and made it back just in time. I was anxious, but she made it.

We flew back to Japan. I went back to work the next day and thanked everyone for covering for me while I was gone.

Dedication

For my family, with love and gratitude.

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On a Guy Called Whit (with a Cameo from Ambassador Rahm Emanuel)

New Note: I am republishing this piece for two reasons: First it’s been three years since I wrote it and it is one of my all time favorites. Second, as the title shows the politician Rahm Emmanuel makes a cameo and there is at least a possibility that he will run for President in 2028. This is a funny piece and it totally speaks for itself. I hope you like it.

Note: This is a piece about a guy called Whit. Over the past little while I’ve run into this guy in a couple of craft beer pubs in North and Central Kyoto. In a sense, it’s faithful to the original intention of thekyotokibbitzer—to check stuff out around the local area. Naturally, “local” is a highly fungible term, which is what makes it so excellent, but it feels good to get back to basics.

Interested readers may also want to revisit my earlier piece about my North Kyoto run-in with musician Damon Krukowski—currently a prominent critic of Spotify’s business practices, but formerly a dick to my face.

I met this guy called Whit at a Kyoto pub we’ll call T’s. T’s is owned and operated, naturally enough, by T. It’s a pretty nice place, although not everyone thinks T is a nice guy. He and I, though, rub along fine. T likes to wear sandals. So do I.

T’s seats about twenty-odd and lets people stand around without a chair, so it can get crowded. On the night I met Whit, though, it wasn’t. There was just me at the L-shaped corner near the entrance, Whit and three male friends at a table, a lone woman mid-bar, and a few other strays.

Whit and his buddies were winding things down, and before they paid, Whit sidled up to the lone woman.

“Genki desu ka?” he asked.

To understand what’s happening here, you need a little context on the phrase. Literally it means “are you cheerful?” but in practice it’s “how are you?” — a totally standard, everyday greeting. It is also, however, a classic Japanese pick-up line. Both the pickup artist and the garden-variety sleazeball deliver their “genki desu ka” with a little extra—an undertone, a wink, a leer.

This guy called Whit, I could see immediately, was leaning heavily into the leer.

I have no idea of how this guy called Whit would have fared with his approach if it had been allowed to develop because T himself came flying around the bar and snapped at Whit (in Japanese) “don’t talk to her, get away from her.” As a mere observer to the developing situation this seemed excessive, especially because T’s is the kind of place where fairly easy conversational congress between the sexes is not only tolerated but actually encouraged. T and his crew will proactively introduce men to women and women to men on the regular. Later in the evening, all sorts of events may transpire at T’s. So this was out of character for sure.

This guy called Whit was taken aback, and soft-pleaded with T to let him join the woman, however T was firm. “If you don’t go back to your table you will have to leave. If she comes to talk to you you can talk to her. Not before.” Again, I cannot stress enough how out of character this is for T’s, so naturally I was curious. I am not normally nosy, however when curious I can be. Whit took the L and slunk back to his table. His friends didn’t seem to have noticed the action, but I did, so I said to him, “hey man, that was pretty crazy. What did you do?” “Nothing,” said Whit, “I just wanted to talk to the lady.” “Yeah,” I said, “I’ve never seen T react that way.” “He just doesn’t like me,” said Whit, “maybe I’ll never come back here.”

Whit and his crew left shortly after and I asked T what was going on. “Whit always hits on women,” he explained, “I don’t like it.” “What about Philip?” I asked (“Philip” here being someone T and I both know), “Philip is always hitting on women too.” “Case by case,” said T, “case by case.” Case by case arguments are very hard to rebut as they index in advance their non-adherence to norms of “fairness” or “consistency.” Also, I knew nothing about Whit and was in no way invested in manning his corner. T and Whit have a history, I supposed, and T would not kick a customer out just because. Such was my first meeting with this guy called Whit.

Not long after this first meeting I was with a friend at a pub we will call K’s, which is in Central Kyoto. K’s is smaller than T’s, seating only about 8-10 inside with some flexible outdoor space as well. Unlike T’s, at K’s there is not much flirting and the like as the space just doesn’t really allow for it. I was there with a buddy and who should come in but this guy called Whit. Now I didn’t mention that at T’s Whit had an American accent. (I later learned he is from Philadelphia by way of San Fransciso.) However he rolled into K’s rocking a full-on British accent, and not a bad one at that. He was standing right next to me, and I did a double take. “That’s that guy called Whit,” I thought, “but it can’t be, Whit’s American.” I looked again. Definitely Whit.

So I asked him, “hey guy called Whit, what’s with the British accent?” He slipped back to his American accent, “oh yeah mate, that’s just something I do sometimes.” OK. We chatted a bit and it was clear that he didn’t recognize me. I reminded him of our meeting at T’s, and he recalled the incident. But I could tell he wouldn’t remember my name next time. He left K‘s after one beer.

My buddy hadn’t met this guy called Whit before, however I had already told him the story of his getting shit-canned at T’s. “That was the guy,” I told him, “the guy called Whit.” “What was with the British accent?”my buddy asked. “I don’t know, some kind of affectation. Maybe he lays it on when he tries to pick up women.” Just a guess on my part, but a pretty good one considering later events.

A few weeks later I was at a pub we will call M’s, also in North Kyoto with another friend we shall call “Philippe” in order to easily differentiate him from “Philip.” It was just before seven in the evening, when who should walk in but the guy called Whit with none other than the newly appointed United States Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel and his wife Ann. They just strolled on in and it was clear that Whit was somehow chaperoning them. I stared over at Rahm Emanuel for a bit and then said “hey there Mr. Rahm Emanuel.” Rahm Emanuel (or just Rahm, as I like to call him) acknowledged his identity and he and I started chatting. At the same time Ann was chatting with old Philippe there at the bar. Before I said hello to Rahm I wondered what on earth he was doing with Whit. And then I thought well, I know Whit doesn’t have a job, he seems to frequent pubs all the time, probably he has some money somewhere, tech money or something. Maybe he’s some kind of VC and the Rahmster has gone out of his way to meet him in Kyoto. Implausible as this scenario seemed, I didn’t know what another explanation for this threesome could be. However, I was off-base.

Had this guy called Whit in fact been a prominent VC it would have added layers to my understanding of him for certain. So I asked him, “hey there guy called Whit, how do you know Rahm Emanuel?” “I just met him,” he replied, “across the street at L’s. We got to talking and I brought him over here.” (L’s is a cocktail bar I have never been too, which is 15 feet from K’s.) It turned out that Rahm and Ann were in Kyoto en route to Hiroshima where they were to visit the Hiroshima Peace Museum with none other than the Prime Minister of Japan. In the meantime here they were, hanging with Whit. Rahm explained the situation thusly: “here in Kyoto my minders let us off the leash so we can walk around freely. This would never happen in Tokyo, because we have security around us all the time.” He seemed genuinely happy to be minderless, and was as relaxed as could be at the bar. In no time he was dropping f-bombs, dapping up the waitresses, and asking me how to say things in Japanese. Rock and roll Rahm baby.

(As promised in the title, Rahm is only supposed to have a cameo in this story, however I have to recount our brief conversation about politics. After I introduced myself, Rahm asked me “are you on the team?” I understood him to mean was I a Democrat. I replied that I was basically on the team, but that I was kind of a left libertarian. “No such thing,” said Rahm. “Well then you’re looking at a unicorn baby,” said I.)

In any case, once I had gotten a bit of a feel for my new buddy Rahm I had to fill him in on something. “Hey Rahm, you know this guy called Whit likes to go into bars and put on a fake British accent?” Rahm didn’t miss a beat as he turned to Whit and, I swear, elbowed him in the ribs, saying “did that help you score buddy? Did you get across the finish line?” Rahm Emanuel, former chief of staff to President Obama, former Mayor of Chicago, and presently the honorable ambassador to Japan, had already grasped the essential nature of this guy called Whit. And he, for one anyway, had no issues with it.

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On the Shisha Girls and Shisha Boys of Kyoto: Field Observations

Epigraph: Where is my nurse, my nurse with the pills? — Ryan Adams

When the world is too sharp, too fast, too opinionated, I do not go to bars.
I go underground.

Down the low-lit stairs in Gion — where tourists drift past overhead and never notice the door — there is a basement shisha den that looks closed even when it isn’t. Noon to 3:00 a.m. daily, 5:00 a.m. on weekends. A place you would miss unless you were meant to find it. Shoes off at the threshold. Warm air, low music, no urgency of any kind. Just couches — three of them — a handful of curtained recesses where people lie fully horizontal like monks or patients or dreamers, and a second floor with several cubbies up steep wooden stairs.

I take a couch, the one I always take — long enough to fully stretch out. Because I am a serious regular, the staff will bump me ahead of others in line to make sure I get my couch. I never asked for this privilege; the staff simply decided on my behalf.

Shisha here is not an accessory; it is the medium. A cappuccino-cinnamon-berry bowl — number four, Turkish — smooth draw, no burn, warmed through cassis if I want the smoke heavier on the lungs. One gin and tonic, maybe two over the course of a session and a glass of water. After thirty minutes, I’m steady. After two hours, I am gone — dissolved but aware, body slow, mind open like a lens on long exposure. Six hours is half a day and feels like two minutes.

This is how I work. I write here. I talk on the phone here. Parallel processing is possible here in a way the world never allows — one half of the brain in conversation, the other spilling sentences into the phone notes without friction. Time softens. Thoughts move without edges. I do not come here to escape the world. I come here to metabolize it.

And always — there are Shisha Girls, and occasionally Shisha Boys.

The girls are not bartenders. They are not hostesses. They are ritual nurses, the so-called nurse with the goods.

The first one I met — call her B. — recognized me early as a serious regular. Light build, hair tied back, barefoot, comfortable like someone who lives inside her own body without apology. She bends into the couch alcove, refills the charcoal, and takes two or three tester pulls through the mouthpiece she wears on a lanyard. That detail matters: they share your bowl to tend it properly. Their breath meets your breath. Their lungs judge the temperature. They diagnose by inhalation.

No plastic tips if you don’t want them — the gold mouthpiece direct to mouth, warm, personal, intimate in the way only unspoken trust is intimate.

K. is older — early thirties — and the one who opens at precisely noon. I give her three or four minutes to descend the stairs and switch on the lights. She’s the quiet boss, not by authority, but by ritual competence. She alone recommended berry + cinnamon when I asked for something special. She knows my bowl, my drink, my couch, my tempo. When she works, I settle in with the confidence of someone returning to a familiar bed in a hotel room booked under a different name.

There are Shisha Boys too. One rotates charcoal with the same practiced inhalation, hair slicked back, present but not overly personal. Another is stationed at the front like soft-security — staff-adjacent — always smoking, rarely speaking, cashing out customers with a nod. They do not socialize. They do not pitch stories. They do not extract biography. You might visit for years and never know their names, and this is deliberate.

In bars, the first currency traded is information: What’s your name? Where are you from?What do you do? Identity is the entry ticket; personality is the product.

But shisha does not trade identity. Shisha trades nervous systems.

You don’t bond through story —you bond through shared respiration.

The intimacy is somatic, not verbal. They watch breath, not face. They regulate heat, not conversation. They calibrate you the way a nurse adjusts an IV — quietly, competently, without inserting themselves. Bars escalate. Shisha deepens. Bars push energy outward. Shisha draws it inward like a tide at night. In bars, you hold yourself up. In Shisha, the room holds you.

After three or six hours, only one thing pulls me back to the surface — nicotine. Shisha gives without demanding, but you are not allowed to smoke a cigarette. A single drawback. So I rise, shoes on, payment made, nod to K. or B. or whichever quiet caretaker tended the bowl. I climb the dim stairs and push into daylight or dark, immediately searching for a legal ashtray on the street.

The re-entry cigarette is the punctuation mark. Shisha is the sentence.

Why do I go? Because here I can chill, dissolve, write, speak, breathe. Because every part of the ritual feels earned — the bowl, the gin, the charcoal refreshes taken communally through their own mouthpieces. Because I belong here in a way that requires nothing.

They are not my friends. They are not therapists. They are not bartenders.

They are my extended other family of lungs and smoke, a household without biography, without narrative — only breath.

Dedication: For B. and K., sneaky babes both of them.

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On Why I Told the World to Fuck Off for 36 Hours

Subtitle: And Saved My Life in the Process

So I called you a cab and they called you a hearse,
and I knew what they were talking about.
— The Mendoza Line, “It’s a Long Line (But It Moves Quickly)”

Note: This piece pairs naturally with my recent essay On the Safe Space (aka Corner Girl). Both pieces are about the small moments that hold us together when we are breaking apart. You can read that piece here.

By 2012 I finally understood what I had been circling back in 2008 without fully naming: the business hotel wasn’t just a neutral space — it was a controlled dissociation chamber. A place where my mind could flatten without collapsing. A room where the world muted itself into CNN-colored soft focus, where time thinned out, where nothing asked anything of me. I didn’t know it then, but all those mid-range rooms — the bland art, the sealed windows, the gentle hum of an air conditioner tuned to the exact frequency of psychic anesthesia — were teaching me a skill I would need later: how to disappear just long enough to come back intact.

So when the pressure finally broke, when I had been working thirty straight thirteen-hour days and felt myself sliding toward the edge of something unnamed, I took the Shinkansen to Tokyo, checked into a business hotel, turned my phone off, and told the world — or most of it — to fuck off for thirty-six hours. And the shocking thing wasn’t that it worked. The shocking thing was realizing I had been preparing for it years earlier, in those identical rooms where the towels were always clean, the windows always closed, and 9-ball was always on.

So I ducked into the nearest konbini and bought a latte from the machine — the one small ritual that still made sense. The warm cup in my hand steadied me just enough to get through the turnstiles. Kyoto Station felt too bright, too full of intersecting lives and needs, the air full of other people’s urgency. I didn’t have the bandwidth to absorb anyone else’s story; I barely had enough for my own. All I knew was that the next Shinkansen to Tokyo was leaving in eleven minutes, and if I didn’t get on it, something in me would snap in a way I wouldn’t be able to walk back. The latte was cooling fast, my hands were shaking, and every part of my body was saying the same thing: Go. Now. Before you say yes to one more thing you don’t have the energy to carry.

Once the room was arranged — bag on the stand, shoes lined up by the door, Pocari Sweat sweating slightly on the desk next to the bottle of red — my whole system downshifted into something like relief. Not joy. Not peace. Just the quiet recognition that, for the next thirty-six hours, my time belonged to me and no one else. I didn’t have to speak. I didn’t have to answer. I didn’t have to hold anything together. All I needed to do was sit on the bed, take a long drink of Pocari, a short drink of wine, and let my body loosen by degrees. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t cinematic. It was just freedom in the smallest, most essential sense: I get to be here, in this room, alone, and the world can wait.

After the first wave of relief, the question always arrived: Do I go out?

Tokyo was right there.

Akasaka-Mitsuke humming five floors beneath me, restaurants lit up like little stages, the crossing full of men in suits walking fast enough to convince you they knew exactly where they were going. I never did. So I’d sit on the bed and pull up the map — not to plan, but to orient. Izakaya here, ramen there, a bar tucked down some side street with red lanterns and a name I couldn’t pronounce. Nothing fancy. Nothing difficult. Just food, warmth, and maybe one drink that wasn’t red wine from a convenience store. I wasn’t looking for a night out. I was looking for simple movement, the kind that doesn’t require performance or decision-making. A walk, a meal, a seat at a counter. A single beer poured by someone who didn’t know my name and didn’t need to.
That was the whole question every time: stay in the bubble, or slip into the Tokyo night just long enough to remember I was a person.

Stepping out into Akasaka-Mitsuke wasn’t lonely — it was liberating. The air felt different the second the sliding doors breathed me out into the crosswalk light. I wasn’t hiding from anyone. I wasn’t avoiding anything. I was simply off the clock in a way that almost never happened in my real life. No one knew where I was, and for the first time in weeks, that fact didn’t carry a threat or a stain of guilt. It felt clean. It felt earned. I wasn’t missing; I was saving my own damn life by giving it a night without responsibility. The freedom wasn’t dramatic. It was simply this: I could walk in any direction, and every direction was allowed.

Out in the Akasaka night, I felt like the version of myself that gets buried under work and obligation — the real me, the one who just wants to wander and see who’s out, what’s open, what energy the city is holding. I wasn’t searching for anything dramatic. I wasn’t looking for revelation or escape. I was just checking things out — the izakaya with the red lantern, the alley with the quiet bar, the group of people laughing too loud on the corner. Dabbling. Moving lightly. Letting Tokyo show me whatever it wanted to show, without needing to make a night out of it. It was the simplest, purest freedom: explore until something feels right, and stop when it doesn’t.

I walked the Akasaka backstreets the way I always do when I’m in this mode — cutting down alleys, taking long cuts and shortcuts that don’t make geographic sense but feel right in my body. Tokyo is a city you navigate by instinct, not logic. You follow energy. You drift. You take the turn that looks interesting, then the one that feels safe, then the one that’s pulsing with life. Sometimes I’d follow the Google map to the place I thought I wanted to eat, only to walk past it and keep going. Other times I’d catch a glimpse of something through a noren curtain — warm light, the sound of laughter, a chef moving with the right kind of ease — and that would be the signal. It was never about the spot itself. It was about finding the right spot, the one that matched the night’s frequency. And over the course of the evening, I usually did both: follow the algorithm, then abandon it; trust the map, then trust myself.

Eventually I found the place — an oyster bar tucked behind one of those half-lit alleys where Akasaka feels a little European and a little dreamlike. Warm light, wood counter, the soft clatter of shells, and a chef who moved with the kind of quiet competence that settles you the moment you sit down. This was exactly my jam: an oyster platter arranged like a small geography, cold and briny and perfect, a bowl of clam chowder steaming in front of me, and a carafe of white wine that I poured slowly, deliberately, one glass at a time. Spendy, sure — but in this mode spendy isn’t excess. Spendy is permission. Spendy is dignity. Spendy is saying to yourself: I get to take my time with this. I get to have a meal that cares for me back. And in that moment, slurping an oyster with the city humming outside, I could feel the night open around me in the cleanest way.

The white wine hit me in that way good pairings do — not as a buzz, but as a reminder of how people take care of themselves when they’re not drowning. White wine and oysters belong together; everyone knows that, and sitting there I felt myself re-enter that understanding. The pairing wasn’t fancy. It was human. It was the kind of small, civilized pleasure most people allow themselves without thinking, and I’d been so buried under work and obligation that I’d forgotten what that felt like. The red I’d had earlier had already warmed me, softened the hard edges, and now the white layered over it, sharpening the night just enough to make everything shimmer. I was slightly buzzed and buzzing — not out of control, not hiding, just finally aligned with myself again.

I left the oyster bar with that warm, gentle buzz humming through me — the kind that makes Tokyo feel lit from within — and walked until I found the sort of place I always look for on these nights. A spendy cocktail bar: dim lights, bottles arranged like small works of art, a bartender in a crisp vest moving with that Japanese mix of precision and grace that makes you feel taken care of without being noticed. I took a high seat at the counter and ordered something I never drink in real life — a proper cocktail, layered, balanced, spendy. Spendy was the point. Spendy meant: I am worth slowing down for. Spendy meant: no one is waiting, no one is watching, no one needs anything from me. I sipped slowly, letting the night stretch out in front of me like a long exhale, feeling myself settle into the version of me that only Tokyo brings out — curious, quiet, open, free.

The bar I ended up in wasn’t some sleek Tokyo cocktail temple — it was better. Two bartenders from Nepal were working the counter, the kind of guys who’ve lived ten different lives before landing in Japan, commuting in from way out because Akasaka rent is a joke. We talked the way travelers talk when no one is trying to impress anyone — about where they were from, how far they lived, what Kathmandu feels like in winter. I wasn’t performing, just listening, rapping with them in that easy drift that happens when you’re slightly buzzed and buzzing in a foreign city. I ordered red wine — not more cocktails — because that was the right shape for the night, and when I finished my glass one of them poured me another, full to the brim, “for the gentleman.” It wasn’t flirtation. It wasn’t special treatment. It was the small grace of the night saying: You came to the right place. You came at the right time. And you’re not carrying anyone else’s weight right now.

When I stepped back out into the night after the second glass of wine, the whole neighborhood felt like it belonged to me. Not in a macho way, not in a performative way — just in that rare, private way where the city’s pace matches your own and you fall into step with its pulse. Akasaka was quiet but lit, humming but not crowded, and for five or six blocks I felt like I owned a slice of it. My slice. The alleys, the crosswalk glow, the last trains whispering underneath the city — all of it moved around me without touching me. I wasn’t hiding. I wasn’t disappearing. I was just walking back to my faded little hotel in a state of clean, earned sovereignty, knowing the world wasn’t tracking me for once. And for those fifteen minutes, Tokyo wasn’t a megacity. It was mine — exactly the size of the person I was in that moment.

Back in the room — my little faded Akasaka hideout five or six blocks from the bar — I didn’t overthink a thing. I drank more red wine, chased it with Pocari, stripped down to my boxers, and let my body fall exactly where it wanted to fall. There was nothing left to hold, nothing left to manage, nothing left to translate. I slept like a baby — a full, unbroken twelve hours, eleven to eleven — the kind of sleep that only arrives when you’ve been carrying too much for too long and finally set it all down in a room no one else can enter. No dreams, no interruptions, no alarms. Just the deep, uncomplicated sleep of someone who gave himself thirty-six hours of mercy and actually took them.

When I woke up around eleven, I felt clear-eyed and ready for more of exactly what the night had been—a continuation of me time. No urgency, no guilt, no one waiting on anything. Just hunger in my stomach and calm in my body. I didn’t rush. I stayed in the room for hours, drifting between the bed and the window, drinking instant coffee, sipping a little more Pocari, scrolling nothing, letting the quiet stretch. I could go out or stay in—either was fine. The whole point was that the day was mine to waste or spend however I wanted. After twelve hours of baby-level sleep, I wasn’t reborn—I was simply functional again. Hungry, steady, grounded, and free.

The next day I was set to return to Kyoto. When it’s time to go, it’s time to go — and the Thin Man cleans up quick. I showered, shaved, packed my bag with the same neat ritual I’d used the night before, and stepped back out into Akasaka like someone who had never been tired in the first place. Before heading to the station I picked up omiyage — the small gesture that makes the return feel seamless — something for the office, something for home. It wasn’t guilt; it was continuity. A way of saying: I left for a day and a half, and now I’m back in the world with all the edges smoothed. By the time I boarded the Shinkansen back to Kyoto, I was already shifting into IB mode — the coordinator, the problem-solver, the guy who keeps the whole thing moving. But now the engine was clean again. The reset had worked. Thirty-six hours alone in a faded Tokyo hotel, oysters, wine, a long sleep, a morning that belonged only to me — and suddenly I could re-enter at full tilt. Not as a martyr. Not as a runaway. Just as myself, restored enough to carry everything again.

Dedication:

For Akasaka — whoever designed that little slice of urban order also re-ordered my mind in the best possible way. Thanks there, baby.

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On a run-in with Damon Krukowski in a Kyoto Basement

New Note: I am republishing this piece with a new note because I just finished a full piece on the breakup of the band Galaxie 500 which is mentioned in this piece on two of the three members of that band, Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang. In addition, I wanted to add a few comments on how the venue of the gig I attended around 2006, Cafe Independents in Kyoto, has changed since that time. I have also slightly edited the title of this piece.

This is one of my favorite pieces in a sense because it was early in the life of my blog and it focussed on Kyoto. The original intention of this blog was to document my explorations of Kyoto, however it has evolved in several different directions since then. So this is sort of “bringing it all back home.” As for Cafe Independents, it is still the same place, however they no longer allow smoking and I don’t know that they have live gigs anymore. The food is kind of the same but dinner specifically has been upgraded and has also become more expensive. It’s still a decent place for lunch, or a dinner date, and one of the sets of stairs is still intact but I think the other one is blocked off or something. In any case, while I have dropped in on occasion recently, I don’t frequent the place as much as I used to. There are a few other, and better, live houses in Kyoto, specifically Urbanguild, which I will write about at another time. If you are stumbling on this one for the first time I do hope you enjoy it.

What follows is a true story.  Or, in the words of Damon Krukowski, formerly of Galaxie 500 and presently of Damon and Naomi, “here are the dirty facts.”

It was sometime in the first decade of the 21st century.  I was minding my own business in my fair adopted city of Kyoto.  You see, I live in North Kyoto and unless I have good reason, prefer to stay in orb of the north-central part of the city.  The south is for business, the east for the occasional mountain jaunt, and the west too wild and forbidding for a humble man such as myself.  Mostly, I just try to stay north of Shijo Dori (positively 4th street, so to speak).  That’s my zone.

As with any excellent locality, there is plenty to explore in North Kyoto.  One place that the locals know is Cafe Independants–a cafe with a small bar which from time to time hosts shows.  Cafe Independants is located in a basement with exposed white pipes and stone walls.  It’s hip if you’re into that kind of thing, certainly not trendy though.  And, it features a kick-ass pair of sneaky staircases that are worlds into themselves.  I have enjoyed those staircases many a time my own self.

I have had the pleasure of seeing the great Bill Callahan open for the immaculate harpist Joanna Newsom there when Newsom was just breaking through.  Callahan was the bigger name, and his generosity in opening for her was striking.  That was a great night.  I may have even smoked a rare cigarette.  I also saw my mate Darren Hannah play bass there with a bow.  That was something–and the dude executed a beauty of a bow toss at the end of the show.  A bow toss for a bassist is like a mic drop for an MC.  Show’s over folks.  So you see, I’d had some nights there.

The Cafe runs an open kitchen which serves right through gigs and back in the day also had a record shop open in the back.  It’s a small place, seating maybe 35 on a good day, and when a show is on people tend to pack around the big pole in the center and squeeze into communal tables.  Smoking is allowed.  The Cafe, at the best of times, is not a quiet place.  This is to be borne in mind with what followed.

So one evening I had secured tickets to see Damon and Naomi play.  Damon and Naomi were members of the late 80s/ early 90’s band Galaxie 500 with Dean Wareham.  The band didn’t really know what it was doing at first, like many a band before, and kind of stumbled into near-greatness before Wareham walked and started Luna, the world’s greatest band.  Wareham details the reasons behind the break-up in his memoir Black Postcards.  Poe is supposed to have said that any man who tells the simple truth of his life would write a masterpiece.  Wareham gets pretty close to following Poe’s dictum.

The ending of Galaxie 500 came about, according to Wareham, essentially because Wareham was tired of being treated like a child by the other two, a long-time couple.  I think he wanted his own band, and wanted to chill a little.  From Black Postcards:

Traveling is stressful.  And with Damon tour-managing, it seemed like every hotel check-in, every seat assignment, and every rental car was a problem.  Damon would argue about what floor his room was on.  He would get annoyed if he didn’t get the seat he wanted on the flight.  I shouldn’t have let this bother me.  I should have minded my own business.  But traveling together highlights your differences.

At one show in late 1990, a techie shone a spotlight on Dean as he stepped downstage for a solo.  This seems to have been the breaking point.  Black Postcards again:

Damon: “In retrospect I notice that Dean chose the L.A. show to launch this new trick, when the audience was full of music industry people.  We hadn’t had any spotlights in Columbus or Dallas!”

Dean in his contemporaneous tour diary: “Damon said he doesn’t like me walking in front of his drum kit–it throws him off.  I didn’t tell him to go f*** himself.”

Things were rough, and Dean split in 1991.  (Wareham quotes a Damon interview saying “Here are the dirty facts!  What happened was simply that Dean quit, more or less out of the blue, on the telephone one day.”  Ah oui, les sales faits.)  Galaxie 500 is still an interesting band and has a handful of great songs.  Then, Damon and Naomi formed their own group, named eponymously.  They are pretty good.  I like “This Car Climbed Mount Washington,” from More Sad Hits, and the whole record Playback Singers is strong.  Still, they are a far cry from Galaxie, much less Luna.

Nevertheless, I was excited to hear they were coming to little old North Kyoto in fact to play the Independants.  I showed up early with a friend and we had a few drinks, as you do.  There were 30 or 40 people there, as normal.  People were chatting, eating, smoking, and a local warm-up act started preparing on stage.  Actually, there is no stage at the Cafe, just floor space.  The show, from my point of view, HAD NOT STARTED.  Additionally, I WAS BEHIND THE POLE.  I wish at this time to stipulate this very clearly in light of what followed.  I also wish to stipulate that no-one is a bigger fan of the idea of the local warm up act than my good self.  Nobody.  By god, I remember seeing the Tenniscoats, a much beloved Japanese band that you won’t have heard of, open up in Kyoto for someone, Bonnie Prince Billy maybe, and saw the great Saya Ueno play in her barefeet.  I support the local art community with a whole heart.  And no blasted interloper will tell me otherwise.

Anyway, on the night in question I will admit I was talking to my buddy while the local artist was getting set up.  And yes, she may have said something into the microphone.  I don’t really know.  Because before I could do anything, here comes Damon bounding across the room, right in my face, and shushed me.  “Don’t speak when the ARTIST is talking,” he hissed.  Right…in…my…face.

Now, the human mind is a remarkable deal.  When Damon shushed me, two simulataneous and equally strong thoughts came into my head.  The first was, “wow, Damon from Galaxie 500 just shushed me.  Cool.”  The second was, “dude, fuck you!  This is my city you pompous SOB, the show HAS NOT STARTED, there is a room full of chattering people, and you are going to lecture me about the ARTIST.”

What did I do next, you will ask? Well, in my mind I like to think I produced a gesture equivalent to Dave Moss’s finger flips in Glengarry Glen Ross, the single best fuck you even put on screen. Or, I may have stared dumbly at the guy.  One or the other.

On the Velvet Underground’s Live at Max’s Kansas City, the future poet and songwriter Jim Carroll famously “ruins” the recording of “Sweet Jane” by asking for a double Pernod. You can find reference to this incident in works as scholarly as The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, published by Oxford Press: “‘Excuse me can I have a Pernod, get me a Pernod’. Poet and author Jim Carroll’s boorish demands for a bloody Pernod ruined (this) illegal cassette taping.”

Well, let’s look at the (dirty) facts.  Carroll’s supposedly boorish demands are almost entirely heard between songs when the band is tuning.  He doesn’t know that the show is being taped. On Sweet Jane, for example, Reed finishes the song and then we hear Carroll:

“Oh yeah, I wrote it, but it’s pretty new, yeah.  Did you get the Pernod?  You had to get the, you had to go to the downstairs floor.”

Sure, he is a little lit.  Sure he is close to the mic.  But the song is over.  There is downtime.  The man is thirsty.  The recording is “illegal.”  Now I ask you, is this “ruining” the song?  Only if you are an honest to god prat.  Otherwise, this is called local color.  Guess what Damon, buddy?  I’m a local.  This is my city.  I’m colorful.  And I’ll take my bloody Pernod whenever I goddamn well feel like it.

Stylistic Note: The style of this piece is deeply indebted to Eric Ambler’s The Intercom Conspiracy.  Inspiration from this master of form is acknowledged, with deep gratitude.

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Introducing thekyotokibbitzer

“Half hours on earth/ What are they worth/ I don’t know
In 27 years/ I’ve drunk fifty thousand beers/ And they just wash against me/like the sea into a pier…”
David Berman (Silver Jews), from Trains Across the Sea.

Welcome to thekyotokibbitzer.com. On this site you will experience posts uploaded whenever I write one. I write mostly about people, music, language, things that happened to me, and things I have observed. I also write some fiction.

Basically, I like to “check things out,” so some of the posts will just be sort of check-ins–that is briefish looks at a topic. Other pieces will be a little fuller, a little more polished.

The kibbitzer, classically, seeks neither fame nor fortune and is seen only by those in the audience, if at all.  If you feel like an audience member, drop a line or leave a polite and interesting comment. Also, if you’d like to write for the site send me a guest post and I’ll see if it’s a good fit.

Here’s Trains Across the Sea for y’all:

Peace out.

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On a small run-in with Damon of Damon and Naomi in a Kyoto Basement (Alternate Title: “A Minor Incident, aka A Dis-Track”)

What follows is a true story.  Or, in the words of Damon K., formerly of Galaxie 500 and presently of Damon and Naomi, “Here are the dirty facts.”

It was sometime in the first decade of the 21st century.  I was minding my own business in my fair adopted city of Kyoto.  You see, I live in North Kyoto and unless I have good reason, prefer to stay in orb of the north-central part of the city.  The south is for business, the east for the occasional mountain jaunt, and the west too wild and forbidding for a humble man such as myself.  Mostly, I just try to stay north of Shijo Dori (positively 4th street, so to speak).  That’s my zone.

As with any excellent locality, there is plenty to explore in North Kyoto.  One place that the locals know is Cafe Independants–a cafe with a small bar which from time to time hosts shows.  Cafe Independants is located in a basement with exposed white pipes and stone walls.  It’s hip if you’re into that kind of thing, certainly not trendy though.  And, it features a kick-ass pair of staircases that are worlds into themselves.  I have enjoyed those staircases many a time my own self.

 

 

img_1793
img_1789

I have had the pleasure of seeing the great Bill Callahan open for the immaculate harpist Joanna Newsom there when Ms. Newson was just breaking through.  Callahan was the bigger name, and his generosity in opening for her was striking.  That was a great night.  I may have even smoked a rare cigarette.  I also saw my mate Darren Hannah play bass there with a bow.  That was something–and the dude executed a beauty of a bow toss at the end of the show.  A bow toss for a bassist is like a mic drop for an MC.  Show’s over folks.  So you see, I’d had some nights there.

The Cafe runs an open kitchen which serves right through gigs and back in the day also had a record shop open in the back.  It’s a small place, seating maybe 35 on a good day, and when a show is on people tend to pack around the big pole in the center and squeeze into communal tables.  Smoking is allowed.  The Cafe, at the best of times, is not a quiet place.  This is to be borne in mind with what followed.

So one evening I had secured tickets to see Damon and Naomi play.  Damon and Naomi were members of the late 80s/ early 90’s band Galaxie 500 with Dean Wareham.  The band didn’t really know what it was doing at first, like many a band before, and kind of stumbled into near-greatness before Wareham walked and started Luna, the world’s greatest band.  Wareham details the reasons behind the break-up in his memoir Black Postcards.  Poe is supposed to have said that any man who tells the simple truth of his life would write a masterpiece.  Wareham gets pretty close to following Poe’s dictum.

The ending of Galaxie 500 came about, according to Wareham, essentially because Wareham was tired of being treated like a child by the other two, a long-time couple.  I think he wanted his own band, and wanted to chill a little.  From Black Postcards:

Traveling is stressful.  And with Damon tour-managing, it seemed like every hotel check-in, every seat assignment, and every rental car was a problem.  Damon would argue about what floor his room was on.  He would get annoyed if he didn’t get the seat he wanted on the flight.  I shouldn’t have let this bother me.  I should have minded my own business.  But traveling together highlights your differences.

At one show in late 1990, a techie shone a spotlight on Dean as he stepped downstage for a solo.  This seems to have been the breaking point.  Black Postcards again:

Damon: “In retrospect I notice that Dean chose the L.A. show to launch this new trick, when the audience was full of music industry people.  We hadn’t had any spotlights in Columbus or Dallas!”

Dean in his contemporaneous tour diary: “Damon said he doesn’t like me walking in front of his drum kit–it throws him off.  I didn’t tell him to go f*** himself.”

Things were rough, and Dean split in 1991.  (Wareham quotes a Damon interview saying “Here are the dirty facts!  What happened was simply that Dean quit, more or less out of the blue, on the telephone one day.”  Ah oui, les sales faits.)  Galaxie 500 is still an interesting band and has a handful of great songs.  Then, Damon and Naomi formed their own group, named eponymously.  They are pretty good.  I like “This Car Climbed Mount Washington,” from More Sad Hits, and the whole record Playback Singers is strong.  Still, they are a far cry from Galaxie, much less Luna.

Nevertheless, I was excited to hear they were coming to little old North Kyoto in fact to play the Independants.  I showed up early with a friend and we had a few drinks, as you do.  There were 30 or 40 people there, as normal.  People were chatting, eating, smoking, and a local warm-up act started preparing on stage.  Actually, there is no stage at the Cafe, just floor space.  The show, from my point of view, HAD NOT STARTED.  Additionally, I WAS BEHIND THE POLE.  I wish at this time to stipulate this very clearly in light of what followed.  I also wish to stipulate that no-one is a bigger fan of the idea of the local warm up act than my good self.  Nobody.  By god, I remember seeing the Tenniscoats, a much beloved Japanese band that you won’t have heard of, open up in Kyoto for someone, Bonnie Prince Billy maybe, and saw the great Saya Ueno play in her barefeet.  I even tweeted about it, for Christ’s sake.  I support the local art community with a whole heart.  And no blasted interloper will tell me otherwise.

Anyway, on the night in question I will admit I was talking to my buddy while the local artist was getting set up.  And yes, she may have said something into the microphone.  I don’t really know.  Because before I could do anything, here comes Damon K. bounding across the room, right in my face, and shushed me.  “Don’t speak when the ARTIST is talking,” he hissed.  Right…in…my…face.

Now, the human mind is a remarkable deal.  When Damon shushed me, two simulataneous and equally strong thoughts came into my head.  The first was, “wow, Damon from Galaxie 500 just shushed me.  Cool.”  The second was, “dude, f******** you!  This is my city you pompous SOB, the show HAS NOT STARTED, there is a room full of chattering people, and you are going to lecture me about the ARTIST.”

What did I do next, you will ask.  Well, in my mind I like to think I produced a gesture equivalent to Dave Moss’s finger flips in Glengarry Glen Ross.  The moment comes at around 2:26~2:28–the little men in the sales office are on the other end of a berating passing for “motivation” when just for a moment, Moss takes the upper hand.  See below:

 

Or, I may have stared dumbly at the guy.  One of the other.

On the Velvet Underground’s Live at Max’s Kansas City, the future poet and songwriter Jim Carroll famously “ruins” the recording of “Sweet Jane” by asking for “a double Pernod.”  You can find reference to this minor incident in works as scholarly as The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, published by Oxford Press.

“Excuse me can I have a Pernod, get me a Pernod’. Poet and author Jim Carroll’s boorish demands for a bloody Pernod ruined (this) illegal cassette taping.”  Well, let’s look at the (dirty) facts.  The fact is that Carrol’s so-called boorish demands are almost entirely heard between songs when the band is tuning.  On Sweet Jane, for example, Reed finishes the song and then we hear:

“Oh yeah, I wrote it, but it’s pretty new, yeah.  Did you get the Pernod?  You had to get the, you had to go to the downstairs floor.”

Sure, he is a little lit.  Sure he is close to the mic.  But the song is over.  There is downtime.  The man is thirsty.  The recording is “ILLEGAL.”  Now I ask you, is this “ruining” the song?  Only if you are an actual prat.  Otherwise, this is called local color.  Guess what Damon, buddy?  I’m a local.  This is my city.  I’m colorful.  And I’ll take my bloody Pernod whenever I goddamn well feel like it.

Works Cited/ Referenced:

Damon and Naomi,  More Sad Hits.

Damon and Naomi, Playback Singers.

Glengarry Glen Ross.  Directed by James Foley.  Written by David Mamet.

Oxford Reference, “Velvet Underground–Live at Max’s Kansas City.” http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195313734.001.0001/acref-9780195313734-e-89759.  Retrieved 9/20/2018.

The Velvet Underground, Live at Max’s Kansas City.

Style Note:

The style of this piece is deeply indebted to Eric Ambler’s The Intercom Conspiracy.  Inspiration from this master of form is acknowledged, with deep gratitude.