So I don’t think I can live anywhere else, at least for the time being.

Kind of funny how the world can flip you upside down only to realize that the entire time you were looking at the answer right in your face.

Last weekend I went with Logan to the Roppongi Towers to get a view of their running exhibit called, “Future Beats in Contemporary Japanese Art.” I was absolutely blown away at what these guys were coming up with. All of them except for one were still alive, so affixing contemporary to the title seemed like a logical fit to me.

As I was wondering I got to thinking just what it is that makes Japan such a great place for art. I immediately thought of the time when I was in Hawaii and Ian and I were talking about being lazy artists. Since both he and I consider ourselves to be of the creative side of content creation, we came to the conclusion that living in a comfortable surroundings makes your mind wander less, and process less, and in the end you just do not think as much. You sink into your daily rut and just go through the motions. As an artist, that is bad because if you are not thinking you are not creating. If you are not creating, you are just a slave to the system and are no longer on the bleeding edge of reality — digging up lost emotions to express in creative ways to the other system-slaves.

Being in Japan is like a constant struggle with me. I want to probe and analyze everything, but more importantly I want to push the envelope as much as possible while living here. I want to get someone to actually yell at me, instead of just giving dirty looks and moving out of the way. The first person that says something like, “You’re a real asshole.” in the appropriate Japanese equivalent; I’m buying him or her drink. I don’t understand how in the world you are supposed to get your point across when you don’t ever speak your mind. Japan is supposed to teach you to have no mind and just be part of the system, but for those of us who are not part of the system, or managed to escape from the inner confides of the mental prison, life in Tokyo provides a wonderful source of inspiration and daily though provoking madness.

I am not out to change Japan, that is impossible. I am out to in Japan learning how to express myself in the most insane ways every moment im awake, without ever resorting to the retarded lazy way of just dressing like a freak. That to me is the artistic equivilant to mental bankrupcy. When all else fails, dress like a whack-o! Too bad this is japan, and they already do it better than you. People stare at me because I am white, not because I am wearing Gucci and Armani, so I will give them something to stare at, scoff at, and scold in their minds at. It’s like an inmate screaming to the outside world because someone just jay-walked 200 meters away. I laugh at it, because I can and because I want to: because I am not your system, and your system will not affect me if I do not let it.

My life is for the moment restrained to carrying around my notebook and my camera. The notebook for writing down lyrics when I think of them, random insanity when it strikes me, and conversations when they prove themselves useful. The camera, because this city is amazingly photogenic in a “far east,”, “oriental rug,” kind of way. I like to take pictures of the insanity that is Tokyo. People take big wide shots that show the beauty of the city from the eyes of a 52nd floor observatory. I like to take pictures of bums next to garbage next to Ferraris. It’s that wide a girth in living conditions that struck me so hard when I first got here. Not that it’s any different from NYC, but for Americans like me living in another country, seeing it is different than reading about it.

I like Japan because it gives me what I need, asks for much much more, and takes whatever it feels like.