June 20 Common sense is not so common. -Voltaire

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  • IM OK BUT YOURE ON REALITY TV by Wallace Gagne

    I was channel-surfing some stupid tv crap:
    Home Shopping, K-1, CSI Detroit – cant
    remember exactly: lesbian serial killer,
    Bolivian corn holders, headbashing
    mayhem – all good fun. Anyway money
    markets are easing and banks are starting
    to loan.

    Meanwhile rainy season is clouding up
    again. Through half the winter then the spring:
    black smoke in dead skies, royal jelly in capsules,
    bulldozed bodies, Heidegger and the credit crunch.
    I should get a smart phone, try to engage
    the whole human being, pay close attention
    to mercury, x-rays, gross miscalculation.
    Maybe watch more reality tv, email my personal
    story to I-Report.

    But I dont. Because I dont wannabe just
    another niche-specific mediated nerd. Another
    Blodnik. Mr. Technoslot. The virtual co-author,
    everyday hero You Tubing my own mental
    breakdown, heart bypass, Reagan-style funeral
    in real time to a global audience that loves and
    cares about me as much as I love and care about
    myself.

    Because I want to be real. Authentic. Genuine.
    I want to do real things in real time with real
    people. I want to get up later and later, experience
    the blues, contract a spiritual malady, smell live
    flowers, feel a failure of will, an actual puppy, fear
    and separation anxiety.

    Because virtual reality isnt good enough. I feel like
    I shouldnt watch cable news just to make fun of
    corporate media. Shouldnt read the papers just
    to see how bare-assed stupid the writers are.

    Ive got to eat in bad restaurants, stay in second-rate
    hotels, talk to homeless guys, listen to pop music
    (some of it must be ok), have lunch with my students,
    for the Actuality, the Authenticity of it, to keep
    in touch, connected, see how the other half lives.

    Busy. Busy. Busy. Thats me. A real person, in real
    time, doing real things.

    www.tokyopoet.com
    Tokyo, Tuesday, 06/23/09

    Fille japonaise (jz)


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    Photo: Japanese girl in Asagaya, Tokyo. June 7 (jz)

    Cheap sunglasses (jz)


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    Photo: man with sunglasses Asagaya, Tokyo. June 7 (jz)

    REAL JAPAN by Wallace Gagne

    Im doing all my best, giving 100%, trying as hard as I can
    to find the real Japan.
    Because I know somewhere beneath the transistors and bad
    hairpieces lies genuine Nippon, the real thing,
    ware ware authenticity just waiting to be discovered.
    Somewhere under the mindless playstations, terrible television
    and justintime production lurks the true Japan,
    the deep rich culture Gary Snyder lured us into forty years
    earlier – enlightened serene land of Zen mountain vegetables
    tea gongs happy husbandmen resolutely working mystical
    mistshrouded rice paddies.

    Because I know behind the No masks hiding those dull frozen
    exteriors inside of which lie dull frozen interiors, somewhere
    resides genuine Japan,
    sun rising over nondual one-pointed Be Here Now cosmic bliss.
    No. Japan isnt just zombie salarymen grogging jammed
    morning trains lurching along buttcovered sidewalks chilling
    in front of imbecilic dorks shouting dumbass crap while
    airhead yahoo gals giggle-shriek fake astonishment on totally
    witless wide shows.
    Japan isnt just the worlds worst political dirtbags sucking
    nicotine teeth promising to do their best after getting elected
    on the Im running for office because I want to be Prime
    Minister ticket.

    Japan is more. Much more.
    The elusive frog jumps into silent pond – kerplunk Japan.
    The Zen master keeps filling the chattering European
    professors tea cup until it floods the tatami mats, Japan.
    Snowcapped elegant Mount Fuji Japan of thundering
    cataracts, cedar scented meditation temples, mind body spirit
    harmoniously united with the one vast rolling on forever
    fantastic universe.

    www.tokyopoet.com
    Tokyo, Sunday, 05/31/09

    Lost and Found 1 (jz)


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    Photo: memory from the top of the WTC, New York City. jz

    Lost and Found 2 (jz)


    newyork2.jpg

    Photo: memory. New York City. jz

    Nan des ka? (jz)


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    Photo: Japanese spirit. Tokyo. May 16 jz

    Do we need community? (jz)


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    Photo: Revellers carrying mikoshi on neighborhood streets in Shitamachi, Tokyo. May 16 jz

    AT MY AGE by Wallace Gagne

    I should be doing more than teaching English in Tokyo
    and getting sloshed on Niigata sake. After all, how many
    more chances have I got to really understand life, to make
    a difference, to give back?

    At my age I should be reading serious books, broadening
    my perspective by visiting destination locations, pondering
    the important questions. Not just sitting around watching
    CSI Miami, shelling pistachios and cursing Wall Street
    sonsofbitches for wrecking the economy.

    At my age I should forget the bad memories of teaching
    Political Science in Canadian universities – the filthy insane
    theories that elected the religious right, my nasty miserable
    colleagues, the stupid a-hole administrators, the sad two-
    faced excuses for students. Time to forgive and forget.

    Stop wishing those dickheads bad luck, hoping theyre in
    unendurable pain, divorced, alienated from their children,
    hosed out of their retirement money by Bernie Madoff and
    Citibank.

    At my age I should be mellowing out, kicking back. Forget
    the flaming nightmare called the last 65 years. Accept the
    myth theres a way out. Believe natural law and justice dont
    operate in this Universe because even by following the wrong
    path we can end up in the right place.

    At my age I should forget about Barbara Bush Pope Benedict
    Mylie Cyrus Plutonium and AIG. Having healthy respectable
    personalities leading us isnt the be all and end all of intelligent
    living.

    Amy Winehouse The Burma Generals Benjamin Netanyahu
    Mel Gibson Marketing Ronald McDonald. Lets face it. Theres
    plenty of highly destructive fools and idiots running around
    out there. At 65 its time to stop worrying whos next to destroy
    forty acres of rain forest, bomb a defenseless city, or launch
    a frothing anti-Semitic tirade.

    www.tokyopoet.com
    Tokyo, Sunday, 05/10/09

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