Digression on memory

I got a tape recorder and I talked for awhile about my hanami.  Here is one of my many digressions.  It's about memory.  TAPE 13:00.  A digression.

Your memory is so important to you, your memories are yourself.  Without your memories you have nothing left.  A long, long time ago I knew an old lady.  She used to feed possums.  She loved to read.  She lived near the library in Indooroopilly, in Queensland, Australia.  She was a kind of friend of mine.  She used to drive me around and I used to swap books with her.  I borrowed some books off her and she borrowed some books off me.  But more or less, I borrowed her books and I didn’t give them back.  I used to go around there and see her.  She taught yoga to old people so she was kind of an amazing person.  But she used to talk about memory like it was something that you wanted to get away from.  She wanted to live completely in the present moment and that was what was real.  So, if your family is not in the room with you, they don’t exist.  It doesn’t matter where they are, or what they’re doing, if they’re not in the room with you, they’re not real.  If they’re not in the room with you, they don’t exist.  How the hell could that be true? There’s got to be a difference between your brother being in China and having a banquet and winning a million dollars, and him falling off a building and breaking his leg.  All of these could be equally real.  Whether you know it or not, they could all be equally real.  It’s not just my memories of things that matter, its actually the world itself.  I don’t believe in living through this lens that it’s only the present that matters and it’s my present that matters the  most.  How could that be possibly true?  Why would my present matter more than anyone else’s on the planet?  Why would my present matter more than your present? You are the reader, right.  I think my present matters more than your present, you think your present matters more than my present.  Where are we with that?  How does it make any sense?  What if we just say, they both matter equally, its just that perspective leads us to think that my present is more important than your present.  My life is more important than your life.  They are both of equal value its just that different people have them.  That’s true.

My life: Hanami without Sakura

My life: Hanami without Sakura: I met the mayor of the city on the weekend.  It was a bit of a strange weekend all up.  First, I woke up and had a bit of a look at my Faceb...

Hanami without Sakura

I met the mayor of the city on the weekend.  It was a bit of a strange weekend all up.  First, I woke up and had a bit of a look at my Facebook and checked my inbox.  Nothing really interesting.  Facebook as always had a few interesting photos to rest the eyes upon, a few gags, and some more important stuff.  So what exactly happened that day, Garant.

Well, its simple really.  Knowing that you would be in Australia in less than a week, you knew it was time to make one final splash.  But first you had to take out the trash.  You sent a couple of messages on Facebook to let the world know you were coming to the park, for hanami without sakura.

Oh that's right.  Here's the thing: the absence of charity in Japan has often struck me as being cause for great concern.  All of the sadness seems hidden away.  I know that's true.  I've been to Tokyo and after arriving they don't let you sit down on the street, so a lot of people- the homeless that is- move to Osaka.  Over here in Nagoya, the homeless are there if you know where to look.  You certainly don't see too many, but they are there.  Look down sometimes, and you'll find a homeless person passed out in the garden for lack of nutrition.  Or sometimes, you'll find a blue tarpolin stretched out with a homeless wanderer living inside, lying down.  I play a little bit of shogi in a park and I know a few people there that I can't imagine holding down a job. 

The church in Japan seems quite bizarre to me.  In Australia, there are all of these guys wandering around trying to convert the world to god knows what for who knows why.  There are all of these wandering preachers- evangelists- telling everyone that they are sure to go to hell, unless they do the logical thing, "Believe in Jesus".  And then what, believe in what?  Believe that he is the Son of God, and the key to the eternal kingdom; you just have to listen to the little radio in your heart, a still quiet voice that tells you what to do.  Acknowledge that you have made mistakes in your life, so therefore are not God, must not be immortal, except you will almost certainly go to hell, the way you're going.  Inside every human life with out Jeezus, as they say in the Bible belt, there is emptiness, a hole that needs to be filled, a special God-shaped hole.

For me, this is simply ridiculous.  If anyone just walked around saying I know the son of god, I know the son of god, believe me when I say I know the son of god, in different cultures they would certainly have been thrown in prison or stoned for blasphemy or, at the least, considered mad.  And the church was persecuted, but they also actually did things.  That's why people started to join.  Because they presented a fairer, more loving, more inclusive community than there was at the time.  The same thing happened with Buddhism where a lot of early converts- how many, I don't know- were outcastes or untouchables.

Sometimes, the church is doing the opposite, they are making people, ordinary people, feel untouchable.  Ordinary human beings have a measure of guilt and remorse for past mistakes and a few questions about where it all began and what the point of it all is.  That's completely natural.  What is a bit misguided, though, I think is to target those human weaknesses.  It's just, well, silly, to think that you can fill a void with a set of beliefs or doctrines.  It only works if you give people something to do.  A lot of the churches I have been to are pretty good on the sins of commission and not terribly brilliant on the sins of ommission.

For those of you who don't know what that means, it means churches are always telling you what not to do, and rarely telling you want to do.  You are supposed to be the salt of the earth- a little earthy, and just a bit different.  Or at least to try.

(I'm going to tell you the worst sermon I have ever heard.  It came from a pretty good guy, actually.  This was in a Pentecostal church at university after I had reconverted myself.  I don't know why I started going there.  I think I was doing my usual thing of trying to give everything a second chance, and trying to follow life as it unfolds.  Anyway, the preaacher told us that the Holy Spirit was like some gold that was in an old, beat up used car.  Without the Holy Spirit, or the gold, the person was all but junk.  I think that's junk.  That is, to me, junk theology.  What, Mahatma Ghandi is junk
because he does not accept the Holy Spirit?  Or the Dalai Lama or Jeffrey Hopkins, his translator?  There is a man I really respect and admire whose name is Matthieu Ricard.  He also translated for the Dalai Lama, but into French.  His father was a philosopher who was quite influential in France.  His most famous book was called Without Jesus or Marx.  His son, the young Matthieu, trained as a scientist but, after seeing some footage of Tibetan monks, he decided to pursue that course instead.  I strongly recommend his book Happiness for what it has to say on the interface between Buddhist practice and the psychological sciences.  Okay, sure but those guys are religious.  Well what about a doctor who saves lives through cutting edge research, or even just your run of the mill GP?  Surely, they don't need the Holy Spirit to have a life worth living.  That's why a lot of things are simply mysteries and to pretend that you have read the Bible- or even studied the Biblle- and have all of the answers is kind of ludicrous. 

What I do believe in is the life of Jesus and the life of the saints.  I believe in those things.  I believe that, for any of her flaws (yes, I've read The Missionary Position by Christopher Hitchens), she did live a life that touched and continues to touch others.  You can't say people or institutions can't have flaws.  But institutions can be on the whole constructive and beneficient or not.  That's an argument that everyone has to weigh their own opinion on.  I think I will scream the next time I hear someone say everyone has to believe in evolution but wars are only fought because of religion.  Why are the chimpanzees fighting then?  Because of belief?  Its just a walking contradiction.  I love John Lennon's music, but I don't imagine that life without religion would fix everything.  It wouldn't.  But religion, properly practiced, can help. 

So I set off to go to the park with all of these intentions of trying to raise a bit of money though selling a few books, or asking people if they wanted to take a photo with my dog.  I wanted to do that on Sunday.  On Saturday, I just wanted to see some friends.  No-one came, but I did only announce it last minute on Facebook.  It was just something I needed to do before I left Japan.

But first, I met the mayor.  I was walking down towards Seiyu, my local shopping market when I saw some local residents milling around a local politician.  I asked who it was.  Someone told me it was the mayor, himself, Mr Kawamura.  So, his handlers asked if I wanted a photo.  Actually, that would be neat, I thought.  I can put that on Facebook.  My battery was dead though, so that was even better because his staff kindly took one for me and mailed it to me the same day.  I don't agree with everything that is going on in Japanese politics, because, as hard as I try, I really don't understand it.  I certainly think that he has made mistakes in office but I don't really want to talk about them right now.  I will say that he is a man of the people, and that he is a charismatic and popular leader in the city of Nagoya.  At least he was.  I'm not sure what everyone thinks right now.

So after that bit of excitement, I headed down to the park.  I met a few people.  Everyone played with my dog, who got tired.  I talked a little bit about my blogs.  I freaked out a little, felt a little paranoid.  And I learnt some important things about my illness.  I learnt stuff like when people are doing simple things, there is no secret code to decipher, beyond basic body language- how the person is feeling and how people are reacting to circumstance.  So that was really good.

On the Sunday, I went out again.  This time I weighed myself down with two bags full of books.  First, I had a clever plan.  After receiving my photo of Kawamura sensei, which read that he was a supporter of little people and little revolutions, I thought maybe it will be okay to show people his message in support of such things.  Who knows if that was a good idea or not?  I just think when you are trying to accomplish certain goals we should use, as Malcolm X should have said, all good means necessary.  My basic goal was to trial my paper cup idea.  It was an interesting experiment.  First, I needed to have some money in the cup, so I asked a few people if they wanted to raise a little money for Fukushima.  No-one understands charity here very much.  It's just not something that you see a lot of.  In frustration, I gave away a book.  One young guy looked interested in my books but disappointed that they were all in English.  So I picked a book of short stories (Bad Haircut by Tom Perrotta), and asked him if he had a dollar.  Then I gave him one.  Then I gave him the book, he gave me the dollar, and I put it in the cup.  Some people will think that's completely illogical.  He got a book, I lost a dollar.  Well, I don't need every book and I don't need every dollar.  What I do need is for the church to start doing such things, too.  The crazy things, the illogical things, the out of the ordinary and strange and different.  The dollar I give away is a sign for others that it's okay to do the same. 

(Actually, this is the second time I have tried my paper cup experiment.  The first time was the previous Thursday.  I got my first paper cup from my old company, thought about its' uses and held onto it for a day.  At the end of the day, my new friend was saying something about a couple of girls playing guitar.  I had been talking to him about paper cups, so I thought I'll show him.  I did a bit of maths in my head.  Worked out what 80% of one beer was, and used as many denominations as possible to make that amount, which I put inside the cup and gave away.  "Thank you, you gave us money," they said. "I love you," they said.  I told my friend that maybe I just started busking in Japan.  I might have.  Who knows.  BTW  I know there are buskers already.  Yet, the system seems a little different in Japan, and it's not as common.  But that's cool. Maybe I started "busking for others".)

I only collected another 121 yen or so that day, until I finally met a young American who I had a pretty good chat with.  He bought two books, and emptied his change of about 340 yen.  Triumphantly, I thought, that will do me for the day.  I walked through a crowded line into the Greenery Association and showed them my letter from the mayor, told them it was for Fukushima in Japan, and just left them the cup.  Now what happens on his end is his responsibility.  At least its a little reminder that people are out there who want that thing to get better.  Who knows what might happen if a couple of these stories spread.

I was pretty sure that someone might want to ask me a few questions later so I thought I better give a couple of explanations first.  I started talking in English with a well dressed older gentleman 20 minutes later near the pond. I talked about my projects and I gathered that I had met another important person.  I met Kawamura sensei's sempai.

4) I have so much stuff in my house, I no longer know what most of it is good for. I don’t even know why I bought it. I must have been insane. Luckily for me, I guess, these robbers came by one day and said, “Give us all your stuff.” But they forgot some of it, so I chased after them and said, “Don’t you want my TV?”

You sat down to write the story that would make you famous.  The story of your life.  So, heres what happened.  It was such a beautiful day, and you sat down outside on your balcony, coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other.  Nice day for contrails, you thought as you looked at the sky.  Look, there's one now.  What plane made that?  Whose arc does it describe?  Who is flying a plane that flies like that?  Oh well, no matter, you thought.  Just enjoy the day.  Look at these fingers, you thought as you toked greedily, hungrily on your cigarette.  Drink some coffee, you thought, that will slow you down.  Ah, yes, look over there.  Look at that.  A cage built for children, children encaged behind this green mesh. And they call that a school, you thought.  What are they teaching them? To be in a larger prison.  A prison bigger than my tiny apartment.  I guess so, you think, but at least they are happier.  Happier than me, you think.  Your wife is not awake yet.  She lies stretched prone upon your bed.  Lifeless, or perhaps she's dreaming.  Maybe you are dreaming yourself, you think.  Too loud, that dog.  You can hear him scratching at the door, pining, whining for your attention, for all of your space.  Its all right, mate, you say.  You can play with me later.  Have you taken your medicine yet, your wife says as she wakes.  Do you want some breakfast, she says.  Not yet, you think, all I want is to jump this balcony, unfold my broken wings and see if I can fly away.  You better not.  Painted birds don't fly.  Four stories down and fast, you realise.  Okay, I'm coming, you say.  You better not.  You think. You know what will happen.  You'll just have another in a long line of arguments.  You pick up your I pad and check in.  They can see me, you think.  Of course they can, they can see everyone.  They are watching me.  So what, they don't care about me.  Not yet, but if I become too powerful, I know they'll shut me down.  I know they'll switch me off.  I know something that you don't.  So there you go, what do you think of that?  The dog is barking, again.  He wants to play, he always wants to play you think.  Hi, boy, you pick him up.  How are you mate?  After, buddy, I just want to realax for awhile.  I just need to think.  Can you pick up your clothes, can you put your stuff away, she says.  Okay, in a minute, I just want to check something.  You are always on that thing, she says.  You know that it's true.  Have you finished cooking breakfast, you want to ask.  You just want to eat, so you can escape the prison that is your house.  Fuck you, motherfuckers, you think.  Who taught us to fill our lives with so much garbage, with all this stuff no-one could ever need..  I didn't do that, you think, You did.  You remember your conversation with your friend.  You can't tell me that this is anyone else's fault.  You know it's not.  If you were born in a communist cpountry, you would probably be a communist.  If you were born in a socialist country, you would probably be a socialist.  If you were born in a democratic culture you know for sure you wouldn't be a Democrat.  Or a Republican, for that matter.  You would, and do, have no choice.  You know you don't.  You're a born consumer, a waster.  You were were born to use up and throw aaway in the hope that something better would come along.  A better wife. A better life.  A better planet.  You were born in a consumerist society, why expect anything else.  I don't know, you think, and you want to scratch your head.  But that would be too obvious.  You couldn't hide a thing like that, confusion.  You've eaten breakfast now.  Its time to take your walk.  C'mon boy, are you coming.  You get his little black bag.  We used to have an orange one, you think, what was wrong with that.  This one's too small.  Like everything else the price goes up as the size goes down.　It's sleek, you know that for sure.  Come here mate, you say as you chase your boy around the house.  Where's your ball, mate, you say.  We're going for a walk.  Can you take the recycling, she says.  You say sure, but feel frustration.  Sure, no worries.  Can you get the cups.  Why have we got so many cups anyway, you wonder.  You will never know that.  Where did we get all this stuff.  You will never know.

um... this thing might not go viral. Damn.

CONTINUED from a previous post

...the whole thing seemed set to implode.  This isn't the way stuff goes viral, is it?  By getting in touch with a few people you like who you haven't made enough of an effort with and the relatives who have probably been worried sick about you for the last seven years.  It was like crawling out from under a rock.  Hello, world, ta dai ma, miss me much?  It still seemed like somewhere to start at least.  Importantly though, or so it seemed to me, I had sacrificed some of my anonymity.  This had better pay off, I thought, because I had 32 contacts in 9 days.

You can skip the next little paragraph if you want.  It's about How I Feel Small
(HOW I FEEL SMALL: I hope no-one thinks I have been using people, honestly I haven't.  Its difficult to try to rejoin the human race when you just feel different from other people.  I always have.  I lived through a fairly friendless childhood, where I felt ostracised, estrandged and marked out as someone not worth being friends with.  This is hard stuff to go through.  It makes it quite difficult to trust people.  It was very difficult for me to just learn to kind of fit in.  Its never been terribly easy for me.  That also leads you to have a streak of narcisism.  You think I'm some kind of a freak, runs the heavily hungover voice of childhood past, well, what's so great about the rest of you.  Honestly, I need to be around people, I've just never felt like they have needed to be around me.  Everyone already seems to have enough friends.  When I'm around other people who seem like socialising is so easy, I often feel like the smallest person in the room.  Sometimes I attempt to act bigger than I really am.  I really need to act like we're all about the same size, about the same shape, that we are all basically human and more alike than different.  WHEW, heavy stuff about social isolation and loneliness out of the way, back to entertaining the reader, hopefully.)

Wow, normal size again.  Let me bang on a bit more

... this had better pay off because I can't do this thing twice.  I could think to defreind everyone, make a mea culpa, and start all over again, to use my wife's identity (I'd already established that wasn't a popular concept) or get myself a pseudonym.  I was frustrated in two ways.  For a start, I thought my wife's picture of Seraph alone had a better chancde of going viral than mine of me with the dog.  Lots of people have dogs but there aren't too many dogs on Facebook.  On the second front, I was annoyed because my sister had beat me to the pseudonym.

"Who is this person you suggested as a friend, Helen," I asked my younger sister.
"Guess," she said.
"Someone "Smith" from Brisbane, I don't know anyone like that."
"That's your other sister.  She used the first name Mum and Dad were going to goive her as a child and Smith as a common surname."
"What, like Winston Smith, in 1984?"
"Who did what in 1984?"
"The book by Orwell?  Oh well, never mind."

Clever girl.  Now, both my older sister and my wife were more anonymous than me in their different ways.  If I had been smart enough, I could have done the same as my sister.    If my wife had only listened to me, my face wouldn't have been on Facebook at all. I could have done all those things.  I could have called myself Garant Smith and posted an old snapshot of my dear pearted labrador, Laddy.  Now that would have been symbolic.

Garant... I am not my name
Smith... I could be anyone
Black dog... and I have issues.

But here's where I stand now, at the present writing
* I have sacrificed my anonymity
* I have a few acquaintances in the city of Nagoya
* Great.  All my relatives know what I've been up to
* C has gone AWOL and hasn't kept his pledge
* R is in England somewhere doing God knows what
* My chances of getting my old APS team back together to start SkypeMe@English.com seem well, a bit, let's say, ambitious.
* I still have my old friend E's book.  I don't even know if he likes me.  He @probably won't make a documentary about me.
* N has probably gone back to Boston
* I have 32 friends on Facebook
* I have started a blog that no-one comments on, or even reads
* I have started a charity organisation no-one has heard of using paper cups that no-one has and I'm about to drain the last cup of my own finances to do it.

What's a man to do?

Later that day: The Guesteraunt

The Guestaurant run by a Postmodern culinarian and his wife.   

 

I am writing this piece in support of the visions my good friend  has for his restaurant.  I would really like to call it “Just an ordinary day, with an extraordinary meal, at an extraordinary place run by an extraordinary couple.”    

 

Recently, my life seems to be looking up, and all manner of happy coincidences seem to be coming my way.  Or perhaps, in my own quiet way, I am finding them.  Here’s a question for you guys out there.  Do you have a friend whose name means friend?  Because I do.  And I feel lucky because I know　he  is a true friend.  He shares my visions and I share his even though we don’t know each other particularly well.  He’s also a very good cook

              So who is this friend?  Let’s start by saying “Well, he’s not Spanish.  He’s Maori.”  Here’s something else you don’t know about my friend- this is a secret the whole city of Nagoya needs to know- he’s a world famous chef whose speciality is Post Modern Cuisine, AND A LOGICIAN.  Isn’t that cool?  I could do with some of that!  This guy is doing a PhD in Logic at my university in Australia as a part time thing, just something to do.  Is he really that famous?  Well, I don’t know.  He’s not exactly Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsey, but he’s been featured on TV in New Zealand.  How many of you can say that?  Well, I know it’s just New Zealand, but have you ever been on TV cooking anywhere?  Probably not, well he has.  And here’s a big puzzler for all the foodies out there- how do you make hot ice cream?  Ice cream that melts when it’s cold, and stays solid when its hot?  He won’t tell me the secret, but I’ve tried it and it’s good.  But he has been teaching me how not to burn the toast.  Just watch it carefully is his best advice, and when you think you can smell smoke, be well aware the toast is probably burnt.  I told you he was good at logic.  So what kind of a chef is he?  He’s kind of a postmodern culinarian would you believe.  His main influence on his cooking style is postmodernism and the unique food he makes shows that.  There can’t be many restaurants like that.

              My friend could make quite a lot of money doing this thing if he wanted to, and I think he probably does already.  Enough to live on comfortably, anyway.  But he is not about money.  I mean, he needs it like we all do but he doesn’t live for it.  What he seems to value is community, charity and friendship.  That’s why last Saturday, he decided to do something a little different.  He decided to organize what he calls a “Guestaurant.”  The concept of a  guestaurant was quite simple.  Basically, my friend gathered together a small but previously specified number of people, in that case six, and asked us to be nice to each other.  Isn’t that something?  What a concept- getting 3 pairs of people together who had no previous acquaintance with each other, push the tables together and expect them to get along over a seven course meal.  And we did.  We got along famously.  He also did this as a favor for me.  Ordinarily the same meal would have cost about $100, but he did it because he wanted to give me the chance to talk about my charity.  Thanks, mate.  I’m sorry, I didn’t talk more about it.  Just felt like one of our guests was really enjoying your food.  I chose to stay a little silent.  But I really appreciated that.

              The guests that night were: my wife, Satoko and myself; C, a New Zealand lady and K, her old English student now living in New Zealand, and D, a young Japanese guy who sells used cars to Africa, and his wife, M.  Oh, and let’s not forget the young Japanese couple’s beautiful little baby girl.  I won’t tell you about the food, but we ate some amazing stuff.  Everyone in the world deserves to try my friends’ tia masu at least once in their life.  I want to tell you just some fun stuff we found out about each other.  When my wife and I arrived, D and his family were already seated.  He had this really cool All Blacks shirt on with the kanji for both those words, as well as the official All Blacks logo.  The first thing I found out about him was that he didn’t make his own shirt.  See, I am interested in getting some Tshirts made by local designers to support a particular charity, so I asked him, “Wow, cool shirt, man. Who made it?”  “Adidas,” he said and showed me the logo.  After the last two guests arrived we all heard a little bit about this young guy’s work in Africa.  We talked about some of the scams that come out of Nigeria, and how that was probably due to mostly political problems, even colonialism, and not the people themselves. 

              Oh, by the way, later on D got me back for the comment about the Tshirt.  I was wearing a brand new red, blue and white polo shirt, faded blue work pants, a cardigan, my black glasses and sporting my medium length, thin black hair (I can’t choose that one, really).  D says, to everyone ‘s amusement, “Where’s Wally?”  I was onto him , so I retorted, “I don’t know.  Where’s his beanie?” because it was the one thing I lacked.  He also loves sport, and we might meet up at Fukiage where he goes to the gym.  He might even try out for the Nagoya Redbacks!  So that’s one thing I did for those guys lately.

              C and K were pretty nice people too.  They really were.  C reminded me a lot of an old friend of an ex-share mate and coworker of mine AND her mother, if that’s possible.  She was funny, smart, and very much from the Southern Hemisphere.  She likes fishing, sport, beer and politics.  Just like Bob Hawke, I guess.  We talked about the Apartheid boycott, the mass media, and all manner of stuff.  I even got to bang on a bit about the state of the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland and my vision of nurturing cross cultural charities.  The Japanese couple even let her hold their baby, for ages.  I thought she wasn’t going to give the baby back. 

              K was good enough to bring, all the way from New Zealand, one of the local drops of wine.  So we shared that as well as the restaurant’s own fine vintage.  She also showed us heaps of photos on her Iphone of where they made the Lord of the Rings in New Zealand.  It was like the Shire without the Hobbits. 

              My wife also had an excellent time talking to these great people, although she’s a bit more shy than I am. She was embarrassed though when I stood up to have a cigarette.  I walked outside and put my fancy, new green overcoat on, but couldn’t find my smokes.  So I came back inside, dug through my pants’ pockets, and my overcoat’s pockets, one more time, and started looking under the table.

              “Look, they’re in your pocket,” C said, rather crossly, I thought.

              “No they’re not.  I just checked.”

              “Look, I can see them.”  And she stood up.   “Do I need to help you?”

              “Where are they?  They’re not there”. 

              “They, are, in, your, CARDIGAN?!?”

              “Oh right” and I finally got to have my smoke.

              At the end of the day, we all left knowing and understanding each other a bit better, liking each other a lot, I think, and with some small promises for further contact.

              And in all of that time my friend’s lovely wife attended to us like we were royalty itself.  I love that place and I love those people.  So let’s support Nagoya’s only postmodern culinarian.  Well, I don’t know that, but I do know he’s a pretty good one.  So if anyone asked me what I would say about that place , I would say the following:   

“My friend is an amazing cook with an amazing vision.  To use his unique skills as a culinarian in the service of something greater than food, in the service of friendship and, well, just basic human warmth.  This is the kind of man he is, this is the stuff he’s trying, he doesn’t know how to make it all work together perfectly, but he’s trying.  He is a good man with a lot of vision.  And his loving, supportive and caring wife is with him every step of the way.  You guys should get to know them.  I think they’re great.  Let’s help them make their dreams come true.  There you go… to the restaurant.  Hopefully, you’ve already booked a place because that restaurant deserves to be full, but only as full as they want to make it.”

The Book of Rumi 2013@ www.uniqreefrelief.wordpress.com

PROLOGUE
Dear world, my name is Grant Andrew Higham, but some people call me Gararantseraph.  The extra a indicates that I am unafraid to act a little carazy, the serapaph is my dog's name.  The name itself means angel, and he is the angel in my life.  My dog has saved my soul and my heart and my life on so many days of darkness, doubt and despair.  So, yes, I do believe in Universal Salvation, except for maybe a couple of people like Hitler.  As I write that name, I wonder what happened to him.  Why that particular biped ended up so fucked up.  The thing is, he would have said that he was trying to do a bit of good.  That guy had masive dreams.  What- a 1000 year Reich, save the Fatherland, spread German culture, purify the human race?  He was trying to do good in his heart, maybe.  Maybe.  Not definitely.  Maybe.  It was just a shame he got it all so wrong.  I like my dreams better.  My family and friends go to heaven, so does my dog, I can see all of the children I ever taught whenever I want, I finally get to meet Bill Gates.  Whenever I want.  I can make all of the dreams of all of the beings off all of the worlds come true.  But only the good ones.  I can see Mark Zuckerberg and discuss how to make Facebook for special needs children and be involved in that project.  I can TRY to help save the world while being something as simple as aladdinjapan@gmail.com.  I believe in infinite possibilitiies.  One day, if you'd like, I will tell you why I think those things are logically true.  If anyone knows anything about a Jesuit called Pierre del Chatard, or whatever his name is, they'll know someone else has dreamt the same or similar.  A Protestant minister, and a universalist, named William Barclay also sits comfortably on my book shelf with his commentaries on the Gospel of John- right near Old Man's War by John Scalzi (SF), The Sound of Laughter by Peter Kay (stand up), How to Read a Book (literary self-help), Towards God by Michael Casey (green Benedictine monk) and Carl Rogers (psychology).  I do try to be Universal.  I have atheists like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett and, I don't know, there's probably a lot of them, on my shelves.  I also have orthodox, tibetan, zen, sufi, episcolian, franciscan, scientific, yogis and existialists.  I believe in a world that can pull together.  I believe my book shelf doesn't clash with all it's colours (mostly because they are books).  We can reweave this rainbow.  But we alone, amongst all species can do that.  At one point I would like to tell people why I don't believe in reincarnation (c'mon, how are you going to be a good scrub bush turkey) but that's just my opinion.  I certainly don't know as much as the Dalai Lama on the topic.  I would be ignorant and deluded to say I did.  We didn't go to the same school. So now let me tell you what I've been doing lately.

I began my Facebook page and my blog with what seemed such a simple dream- to save the Great Barrier Reef in Australia while in the city of Nagoya through a self started charity and a book about how the most heroic and courageous lives could be perfectly ordinary ones lived in relative anonymity.  My friend E would have been relatively pleased to note that I was keeping to my end of the bargain.  I was still pretty good at not being Ghandi, and being Grant was never easier.  I still didn't have my salt mine but I had tried to be more proactive, to make more choices. 

I had tried to do something more useful than complaining.  I had found some things to focus on- issues I cared about- and to fulfil some of my artistic ambitions- I was trying to write a book.  The problem seemed simple but the solution more hazy.  The only problem, as far as I could see, was I was having a lot of problems. 

Let's begin with the obvious stuff.  I had been reclassified as a SKZFRNC, rediagnosed myself as a problem drinker at times, my wife thought me more than a little crazy.  But I didn't have time to think about such trivialities.  I was busy.  I worked in a frenzy of misguided activity, as I furiously put pen to paper, paper to wordpress, wordpress to my new blog as well as racking up　some serious Facebook credibility.  On Facebook, I friended everyone I could think of.  I hadn't yet tried Matt again- I couldn't brave the rejection.  But I was now friends with 32 other people.  Of these, about 5 were people I knew quite well in Nagoya, another 5 were people I knew in Nagoya a bit more, a couple of very old friends, only one of whom I had kept good contact with and a few people I barely knew.  The rest of my contacts were family members I had long since lost touch with.  It was great to get back in touch with my roots but, for crying out loud, (no offence to anyone) I was trying to spread my message virally and I was right back where I started!


I wanted to be friends on Facebook with 1000 people I barely knew or had never met- not my relatives! It just didn't seem like a very good way to go viral.  The whole scheme seemed set to implode at any moment. To be continued...


Interlude: ORDINARY DAY
* Got my prescription refilled.  Stony silence on the way there.  Wrote down something in my notebook, might use it (it's because everyone else thinks I'm a little carazy when it's this world that's gone completely mad.  Worried about what we're making.  So anyway,
E ' R U O Y
G N I D A E R
Y M
K O O B
S D R A W K C A B
S T :-) O P I D  

I asked the doctor if I could ask a question.  He said no ?!?, just NO.  That's whack
* Fortune still seems on my side
* Today I ran into Andy, a really great guy from Columbia who I knew through my old part time job
* He told me he had to do some praying.  I thought I misheard him.  Hope he wasn't offended.
* Conversation felt a bit stilted
* My wife and I sat down to a surprisingly delicious meal at a cheap restaraunt.  My wife had two dishes for the price of my one.  I sampled them and they were pretty tasty.  We also had some fried chickedn for a couple of bucks.  All up, the cost was about $12 for two.
* Went shopping for second hand clothes with S.  Bought a blue, red and white polo shirt and a Blue overcoat, as well as a green one.  All up about $25. 
* On the way home someone called out Grantsan.  It was Mr Inoue, the caretaker at my last school.  Tentatively, I asked how it would be if I turned up at school for a day, just to say hello. He said that that would be great.  I felt happy. I still don't know why I can't get or keep in touch with people.
* I went to my first ever shamisen lesson.  It was really great.  We only played one song, "Sakura, Sakura"  or cherry blossom, cherry blossom.  But it actually seemed doable. (PS: I've never been very good at music.  I stopped playing the violin because I actually thought my mother wanted me to stop practicing it.  This was back in Grade 5.  At Karaoke I almost got into a fight with some asshole from Texas who told me to stop singing.  I can cope with that, and I do, from friends, but not from almost complete strangers I see in a bar and invite along to be with my wife and her friend.  I bought him a beer too, and he asked me to get him one.  Brought it back and he said I bought the wrong one!  What a prick.  But I hope he's changed a little or mellowed.  He asked me if I wanted to fight.  I said, no, I just think you're rude.  Why does that mean I want to fight.  I've got better things to do than get beaten up by morons who haven't learnt any fucking manners.  I said some of that, but not all of it.  I didn't back down, because shit heads don't really scare me.  One of the scariest things is a person who is not very afraid of a little self-inflicted pain.  So if someone kicks me in the shins, which they did twice (once as a child and once as an adult), well the second time, I just hit myself in the head.  Like in American beauty.  Hopefully, I've grown up a bit and wouldn't be so masochistic.)
Anyway... digression aside... The shamisen looks a bit like a banjo and playing it felt similar to what it must be to play a guitar with only three strings and a giant pick that looks like a comb.  I was actually pretty good at it, I thought.  Wow, found an instrument! Cool.

Blue tones

If you like the following  story, you can complete it.  Send me an email.  I have actually my finished copy in a notebook.  I want to know what you would do with it.  Would you like to make it science fictional.  That’s okay.  Would you take out the swearing.  That’s okay.  Would you set it in a playground?  That’s okay.  You can do whatever you want with it.  I also have one more, too.  I’ll post that later.  You can sell it too, if you want, or publish somewhere.  This is because I bang on a bit about privacy on the net.  And stealing other people’s stuff.   WARNING:  Very good themes in final version, but a little bit of swearing.  Whoopi Goldberg used to say The F word is not a curse word, but Stupid is.  Think about it You’re so fucking… wonderful/ beautiful/ talented/  stupid/  smart.  Which word would have bothered you?

 

 

 

 

 

Bluetones @ 8 : A parable.  A short film by Grant Higham

 

 

Sign reads, “Must have black shoes, tie and belt”

 

DAVE A white guy walks into the bar and the bartender says

“We don’t serve people like you”

 

The white guy leaves the store and brings back JOHNNO another white friend, who wears a black belt, a black tie, and black shoes, and a black armband.  His jacket viewed from behind, reads “BLACKFELLAS” who says “Do you serve people like us.”

 

“Sorry, the bartender says, “we don’t serve people like you.”

 

Dave: “My friend would like a drink.”

 

I’m sorry, sir.  We can’t do that.  We don’t serve people like you.

 

DAVE says “See you later Johnno”.  He leaves and waits outside

JOHNNO texts a whole bunch of people.  The text reads, BLACKFELLAS, bluetones@8. Two guys are white and three guys are black.  some of whom are dressed correctly, some of whom are not.

 

“You can stay the rest have to go” 

 

“Cool can we use the loo.”

 

“What all of you?”

 

“No just two of us.”

 

Friend, “C’mon man, we really need to go

 

“Alright that’s fine, just the two of you.”

 

They change clothes and come back,

 

“Which one of us has to go?”

 

You all have to go, right now.

 

What, these guys need to go, too?

 

You all need to go, before I get my friends here

 

All right, we won’t all fit though.

 

He motions, six to bouncer, who comes over.

 

There’s quite a crowd around.  Some are laughing.  Some are not sure what to do. 

 

Allright, fellas, time to go before we call the cops.

 

Shut the fuck up, motherfuckers.  You don’t know who you messed with.  We ain’t no “fellows” of yours, we’re the Blackfellas.

 

Hey Johnno, check this guy out

 

He shows an ID card

 

Manny’s face goes white.

 

See us now.

 

Yeah sure, you’re one of them blackfellas.

 

How come he’s white

 

I honestly don’t know

 

No, take a guess.

 

Because he’s part aborigine.

 

You tool, he’s fucking from Bosnia.  Does he look black to you?

 

No, he doesn’t I was just wondering.  Sorry

 

No, you said he was a blackfella, now you say he’s not.

 

What is he then, fucking green? 

 

That’s right motherfucka.  Why am I a blackfella?

 

Because you’re black?

 

You just said he was black.

 

What do you mean?

 

Are you fucking stupid?

 

Probably.  Grabs his friend and puts a gun against his head.  Does anyone know why I shouldn’t shootthis motherfucker right now?

 

Bartender turns away..  Where’s my courage? (THOUGHT) 

 

Bartender’s internal monologue goes, “Because it wasn’t his fault.” But he turns away.  Where’s my courage (THOUGHT)

 

Please god help me

 

Wrong place.  Wrong time.  Alright you can go, motions him to the floor.

 

I want to talk to you.  Anyone know why I shouldn’t kill you.

 

Not surprised.

 

You know why we’re the blackfellas.  We’re the black fellas because the world ain’t black and white.  Black signifies fullness of colour.  White signifies absence of colour. 

 

You guys got a lot of stuff the wrong way around.  You do.  You think black is bad and white is good.

 

So you all reverse it and say we are black on white  We like black belts, black collars, black shoes, black ties.  The world’s not so black and white.

 

Anyone here dressed for a funeral? He looks at the club and its patrons and the manifold colours they sported. 

 

So who was black here?  You were cause you’re heart was dark and weak, motherfucker.

 

Then he turns the gun to his own temple.

 

Making progress

MAKING PROGRESS

 

My Facebook and my blog were begun with such simple dreams.  All I wanted was to help save the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, while in the city of Nagoya, through a self-started charity and a book about how the most courageous lives could be ones lived in almost total anonymity.  My friend E would have been pleased to note that I was keeping to my end of the bargain.  I was still pretty good at not being Ghandi, and being Grant was even easier.  I still didn’t have my salt mine but I had tried to be more proactive, to make more choices. 

              I had tried to do something more useful than complaining.  I had found some things to focus on- issues I cared about- and I was trying to fulfil some latent creative ambitions- I was writing a book.  Nevertheless, I was confronting one major problem.  That problem, as far as I could see, was quite simple, but the solution much more hazy.   The problem was this: I had way too many problems.

              Let’s begin with the most obvious stuff.  I had been reclassified as a schizophrenic, was self-diagnosed as an overly heavy drinker and my wife… well, she thought I was going more than a little crazy.  But I didn’t have time to think about such trivialities. I worked in a frenzy of misguided activity, as I furiously put pen to paper, paper to Wordplus, and Wordplus to my new blog.  My writing was coming along better than expected, with almost 100 pages of variable quality.  I had carefully censored my writing, choosing my excerpts with care so that my writing would appear as polished as possible.  And I was starting to rack uo some serious Facebook credibility, having added 32 friends to my wall in just over a week.  Despite my wife’s considerable and understandable anxieties, fortune still seemed to favour the crazy, and life in general was looking up.  Take Saturday, March 23^rd, for example. 

              The day began with another argument.  Two days previously, I had missed a medical appointment to get my prescription refilled.  I hadn’t meant to.  Heavily medicated, 5:45 turned out to be precisely the wrong time.  It was too late in the day, leading for me to be caught in a nap, and too early for my wife to send me a reminder call after her work.  I woke at 5:35 , but was unable to hail down the one taxi driver in Japan I could find.  Angry at having caused the appointment's cancellation, my wife wasn't feeling very conversational.  With everything in my world, including my wife, weemingly conspiring against me, I met her stony silence with some boiling fury.  tempestuoulsy, rampant, perhaps just a tad overexcited...
After she walked away, I hurled my old canvas carry bag in her general direction, and chased after her.  Two days later, my wife had yet to forgive me. 

          Our new appointment was scheduled for 10:30 that morning.  The morning began testily, with my wife asking me to leave myself free in the afternoon.  Unfortunately, I had committed myself to a dinner appearance at a friend's guestaraunt (more on that later) and not told my wife.  I know what the reader out there in reader land might be thinking right about now.  That guy sure does have some communication problems.  He always seems to be committed to two things at once, and he needs to learn to say no to stuff he doesn't want.  He sure does need to sort out his dramas.  Well, are you thinking that?  Or am I just thinking that you are thinking that?  Are you there at all, on the other side of another screen as I write?  I don't know, honestly I don't.  Well, let me just say that I do have problems.  One of the defining characteristics of my life has been the degree to which I have tried to live my life in such a way as to make other people "happy".  Hence, I'm pretty good at "yes"ing things through, but not very good at all at "no"ing others.  Yes, I see you don't no what I mean.  (This is called a weird and clumsy attempt at humour, or simply a s entence or to make you think. Some typos are intended.  I can do that you know?  It is my blog.)  Moreover, I tend to worry and procrastinate rather than meeting problems head on.  So, Saturday was the  day I would have to pay the cost of my duplicity. 
           But it didn't turn out that way at all.  In my book, I may go on to write down some more of the sentences here.  They are kind of funny and interesting, I think.  What do you think anonymous? As an example, after I got my medicine I met a guy I know whose name was Andy.  I know him from previous work, and he seems like one ofthe nicer people I've met.  I think he's from Columbia actually.  So Iwas really happy to see him, but I'm not the smoothest conversationalist.  I'm kind of shy and awkward.  I find it hard to look in stranger's eyes.  I don't know why.  It bothers me.  I'm evnvious of some other people I know.  Like Andy.  He just sees you and smiles.  His eyes grow wider, like a kid at Christmaa, just at the chance to say hello.  Just to see me.  I wish I was like that.  But I'm not.  So that's okay.  Our conversation went a bit like this:

"Hey, Andy.  Nice to see you.  This is my wife.  Andy's wife used to work with me on Friday."
We made a little bit of small talk.  Everyone said hello and I asked "What are you doing, man"  "I have to do some praying," he said.  I thought I misheard him, so I said, "What man?"  He explained that he was Catholic.  "I have to do my praying.  I'm Catholic." 

(He probably gets a lot of grief about it, just because he likes a pope.  "Hey, Andy?  Anything else I need to know, or can I just dismiss all of your life and fold you up and put you into one of my little boxes.  Plays guitar? Good.  Juggles?  Good.  Writing a blog?  Good.  Catholic.   Oh, I didn't know you were one of those.  Catch you later, man.  I have felt my whole life that people do this.  They like other people's music, they like other people's dress sense, they like other people's attitudes.  And they just put them on like they are dressing themselves in other people's clothes.  And they do these things for so long, that they forget what they themselves think.  Kind of.  Not exactly.  But kind of.  Me, I always used to say, well, how cares what you're wearing.  We're all naked underneath.  Two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth and a mind.  And fingers made for talking.  I told my vice principle this one day.  I have eyes, I can see, I have ears, I can hear, I have a mouth, I can speak.  I have amind, and that's last freedom.  No-one touches that.  Of course this is difficult in practice.  I like McDonald's.  They tricked me when I was a kid.  I choose not to eat there very often.  And I like the coffee at Starbucks but I wish they'd pay a little bit of tax.  Oh, we have hundreds of stores in the UK, but none of them make any money.  We at starbucks anre fucking homeless.  Yeah, right.  Thanks, guys.  Thanks for paying back into the society that raised you. I mean, I have debt.  I have to say what my income is, because I have/　had a normal job.  I didn't get a freaking scholarship.  So I have to pay that back.  Don't you?)

A real believer in coincidence I pointed out to Andy and Satoko that my dad used to call me Grant Andrew.  Wasn't that something?  The conversation seemed warm and well intentioned, albeit a little poorly orchestrated.

See you next time, Grantseraph11... Faceless man in a Facebook world.  :)