These Are The People In My Neighborhood – Part 1

Having run across all of these folks today I thought I would share some of the mixture of people in this two part series about some of the common faces I see nearly every day (with the exemption of the fist entrant as they are far more sporadic and limited, really, to only one area). I have always been a people watcher, an observer, even back home in Ottawa and Toronto there were the usual suspects I would spy often on my walks. There was the witch looking lady who walked down Yonge street waving her left hand about as if to motion people out of the way. There was the friendly gay artist in the coffee shop in Ottawa. Who can forget the wheelchair bound guy on the Bank Street corner and his nasaly “Good afternoon” or the wonderful old man that watched over the Cat Sanctuary. The shouting guys, the crack heads and the bleached blonde prostitute who got a jump on her competition by soliciting at 9am…yes, I remember them all. Here are some of the people in my current neighborhood.

And I Thought The Jehovah Witnesses Were Bad
I am sitting by the Nara Pagoda on this the first sunny day of the week. My visits to Nara during my teaching week for the last three months have been rained soaked. Today was a nice change that brought me into the city early with a little lunch by the city landmark. I am just about to dig into my rice when a man sidles in a poor attempt to look inconspicuous. He is very noticeable, his eyes narrowed onto me painting targets onto my body. I suddenly had the same feelings as I do back home when I answer the phone and on the other line is somebody politely asking “Is Andrew Gogme there?” I gaze at a handful of pamphlets in the approaching fist, the man in a partial suit spies me spying him and his cover is blown. He smiles gleaming whites. I offer a weak grin which he mistakes as welcoming and he proceeds to shit down next to me. After a quick apology for interrupting my lunch he starts asking me some rather detailed questions: Where are you from? Do you like Japanese people? What food do you like? Is your family very religious? Ah, now I knew where this was going. Okay, buddy, I’ll give you about five minutes to pitch something I ultimately will not by into but for the purpose of having a conversation over lunch for a change well, sir, give ‘er. The man begins to talk about Tenrikyo. Yes, this again. I explain that I am familiar with the religion being a teacher in Tenri and all. The man goes on. He tells me he used to live in Seattle and made many visits to Canada after I have told him where I am from. Wait…wait…this is all sounding extremely familiar. From the April 5th entry: As I was exiting the station one of those Tenrikyo folk stopped me, actually flagged me down as I was wearing my headphones at the time and, well, wouldn’t you know it, he was trying to recruit me to join! First the Jehovah’s and now this guy. I’m a virtual magnet for religious recruiting! I liken that bagging a foreigner to these people is huge points akin to, say, running down an elderly woman in Death Race 2000. I politely tried to vacate the conversation but he was a persistent black robed man who spoke excellent English on account of having lived a few years in Seattle. Well I’ll be damned, it was the same guyWould he remember me? He did not. An advantage. I tell him how we had met before in Tenri. He looked embarrassed, his speech not peppered with stutters ane he quickly entered into the final part of the pitch. I again declined my address and phone number and thanked him for his time. He passed me over a flyer and again asked for my name. ! Shit, what name did I give him before? John…John…Alderwood? Albershot? I choose the second, which was wrong, but what did it matter. Of course, the last time I figured I wouldn’t see this guy again and here he was in another city. He invited me to the church to get a full tour and maybe I will take him up on that. That building in Tenri holds areas that are quite mysterious and maybe if I faked interest in joining the fold I’d get full access to the Naked Tenrikyo Prostitutes Room of the complex. Later that day I was approached by two young women and a man, the man in suits and the women in business dresses, also attempting to recruit new followers. These people rushed me. I didn’t see them coming. Again, I have to wonder if bagging a foreigner ranks high in the Tenrikyo recruitment point system. Wanting to get to my lessons I had to be a bit rude with this bunch as they were forceful in not wanting to let me off without hearing their pitch. I hate organized religion but I hate people forcing their viewpoints onto you even more. I think telling them I worshiped Satan finally edged them off.

The Elegant Art of Avoidance
With the warm weather (exceptionally warm weather, actually, and if this is a precursor to what I can expect when the weather gets really hot I am going to need about seven fans in this place) now here the tissue paper packet passers (say that three times fast) are not out in droves and with them have come an abundance of other people passing out things at the entrances to train stations. There are the flyers for travel agencies, the pachinko parlors, the strip clubs and I don’t even want to know what those guys with the picture of the horse hung around their necks are passing out.They are getting crafty, too. You will dodge one and run right into another as they have formed a line on the sidewalk thus now creating a much harder obstacle course. With not being able to read the flyers they are passing out and having already built a few tissue paper forts, I have had to develop a few avoidance techniques to ensure that I am not filling my pockets with unwanted paper. The first tactic is the pretend to be looking at something interesting behind the people handing out the flyers. They turn their heads, you slip around them and are in the clear. Works nearly all the time. The second tried and true method is to instantly start spouting off long English sentences. Recite Shakespeare, for example. This is intimidating and the flyers are quickly passed on to the people behind you. Finally, acting really insane, when no cops are around, is the perfect method to ensure you remain flyer and tissue paper free. Do what I do. Drop your pants and shit on the people handing out the flyers shoes. After the disgust wears off you can best bet they will be walking away from you and the best part here is that, in the future, they will be avoiding you. Now of course I could just say no and politely smile but where is the fun in that? Publicly defecating on footwear while reciting Troilus and Cressida is the way to go people!

Live Tonight In The Tunnel By To The Train Station: Jerry Garcia!
Staples of my days Japan are trains, noodle dishes, lots of rice and the enviable encounter with a squat toilet. Yet there is one more constant in my life, a daily sight as frequent as vending machines and shrines. I call him, for lack of anything better to call him but the obvious, The Yagi Bum. My particular train station has a small homeless population headed by this man, a heavy set guy who resembles the late Jerry Garcia only he’s Japanese and doesn’t have an ice cream flavor named after him. Let me tell you, though, the Ben an Jerry’s guys really should develop a taste called Yagi Bumderful. The Yagi bum never leaves his spot in the train station. If I hadn’t witnessed him move you’d swear he was a strange statue. He stands near the front steps next to a stack of magazines which he quietly thumbs through, looking up with wide eyes every now and then. His hair is long and bushy, an afro gone wrong, and he can usually be seen sipping what is left of cans that people through away. He doesn’t ask you for change. In fact, come to think of it, none of the homeless here ask you for change. I wonder if this is a cultural thing. When not standing in his usual spot, generally after 11am as the train travel day is winding down and the station is about the close, I have seen him in the tunnel leading under the street curled up with his magazines under some boxes. Sometimes he has a radio propped next to him and he is listening to the news. He’s a pretty scary looking dude with his matted hair and dirty face, all wide eyed with looks teetering on the edges of sanity. He keeps mostly to himself, reading his magazines and gazing out at those around him but I’m sure the Yagi Bum could get a gig in the Tokyo wrestling scene if he tried. That or he could form an all Japanese Grateful Dead tribute band. I haven’t heard him speak so I don’t know how his Uncle John’s Band rendition would sound but he’s got the look and if Mini Kiss can make it why not the Grateful Homeless?

Tunnel Tarot
Speaking of the tunnel near the train station there are two more less constants I spy there often after the Yagi Bum and his cohorts. The first is Madam Yoko. I call her Madam Yoko. She has a sign and it could say Madam Yoko, right? Maybe she’s a Madam Yuir or a Madam Aii or for all I know she could be a Madam Esmerelda in keeping with the theme of her presentation. She may not even be a Madam at all. After the Crying Game you can never be too careful. Anyway, Madam Whomever She Is is the resident tunnel fortune teller, sage and mystic. I have seen her with some small bottles too so maybe she is a practicing apothecary as well. If she has any wisdom to impart upon me about my future, alas, I cannot understand her. She knows this, knows she will obtain no finance from me and offers up great scowls when I pass her by. Her face is lined, she wears colorful bandanas and often hoop earrings to farther the popular image. All she needs is a caravan and a mule. I don’t think the Japanese really by into this as I have never seen a customer sitting there with her at her small folding table with her small candle and tarot cards. She needs something to pass the time as when I walk by she is just staring blankly out into the dark of the tunnel looking extremely board. Maybe replace those tarot cards with playing cards and offer to host Yagi Station Tunnel Canasta Night. Now that might bring in some crowds, get the Yagi Bums in on it and our next batch of neighborhood folk can provide the music. Deal me in Madam Whomever You Are! Actually, one shouldn’t gamble or play card games with fortune tellers. They do have that unfair advantage. As an aside, here, seriously, who buys into this crap? Lines on palms mean nothing, people as do the placement of the stars, pictures on cards and formations of wax in water. I think it would be pretty comical to set up my own booth, have people stop and then tell them the obvious: “I see you are wearing green and have a bad haircut. Twenty dollars please.”

How Could Anyone With A Guitar Not Know Dylan!
I posted a short clip of a tunnel singer early on in my move here and he is but one of a constantly rotating band of traveling buskers who populate the tunnel and alleyway of my local train station (there is also a large collective of these folk in the large open area in front of Tenri station as well). Usually armed with guitars, though I have seen trumpet players and there was that guy with the Koto, these singers belt out popular Japanese pop tunes usually quite off key. They are always men surrounded by schoolgirls listening and singing along. Their cases are usually not filled with much change but pour themselves into these songs these station singers do. You can often hear there voices loudly echoing the instant you get off the train. I have sat with a few of them from time to time making English requests that I can sing along to. Most times they don’t know any of the songs I toss out there but every so often I get a guy who knows some Simon and Garfunkle or some Johnny Cash and I am able to join in. You can tell how long these kids, and generally they are teens, have been sitting there by the amount of empty sushi containers surrounding them. Although everybody but teenage girls and myself simply pass them by I don’t get the idea that they are not welcome as I have seen cops nearby do nothing to usher them away as I have seen in similar situations back home. Yes, for the most part the vocal are atrocious but there are times when somebody with some real talent can be found strumming away in the tunnel. This one guy in particular even tries to look the part with his black outfit and shades. Some of these Japanese songs are beautiful and I find myself wishing I could ask for the name. Duos of singers are the most common. Two guys double the amount of teen girl onlookers, don’t you know? If some of these people put as much work into their singing talents as they did their picking they might be able to escape the tunnels and the sparse change and land on the radio. No matter how shitty the singing is, though, I’d much rather listen to them then the musak or the overly chipper high pitched screech of the female voice over the station speakers. If I had a printer I’d print off some tabs to some English tunes, some Dylan and Guthrie, and then maybe I could jam all night long in the tunnel with these kids, get my own set of shades and start up Tunnelstock. For now I toss down my change, listen to a few songs, thank the tunnel musicians and walk away.

Stay tuned for part two coming soon.