One Thousand Grasses
The girl, of course, is good. They all are. In some way or another. Curvy and funny, smart with big, bright eyes. Their hair is great and they smell good and when they smile everything is ok. Even if it really isn’t. Then again, in some way or another, they are all bad as well. This is why stamina is key. The good part, which is so good at the beginning of getting to know the girl, goes so fast. It is like driving a red sports-car during a cool, sunny day on the coast highway with no one but the birds flying and the waves doing their thing. Sooner or later the clouds come out or the cops show up or you just run out of gas. If you are anything like me fellow driver, it would not be strange at all if your car stopped one day, looked at you and said, “I don’t think this is going to work out,” and just drove off. That happens all the time in my life. I guess in some way how jobs you wear khaki to in office buildings are to me is how I am to girls. Some girls. Hopefully not all. Though I am quite good at meeting specifically this sort.
One Thousand Grasses
Land of the Living
The common belief is that it’s easy to criticize, that it’s easy to hate, but the truth is that it is not effortless to be negative: it takes work. It may in fact be even more tiring than being positive, though the scientific data on that is still inconclusive. At the biological level, there is no judgment, energy consumption doesn’t differentiate between good and bad, so waste is merely waste, for good or ill. So the Buddha espouses the Middle Way, which is not to say in between Yes and No, an indifferent Maybe, but rather more akin to the point of a triangle, a high ground connected to, but removed from, extremes, be they monkish or lavish.
Make no mistake, reaching this goal is work. It too expends energy. Ensconced in diamonds or wrapped in rags, as long as you are reaching for something in the dark, why not reach intelligently, rather than flailing about.
Tokyo - Land of the Dead
246 X Shibuya
The ancient Greeks believed in the Omphalos, which is both a thing and an idea. While the “thing” is one of a few actual stone artifacts located at Delphi, Jerusalem and other religious mystery sites, the idea is that of the “navel” or bellybutton. If you’ve been to the Delphi Museum and seen one of these very large urns, you will know that they are generally crisscrossed with intricate web-like patterns, all lines originating from one point, expanding out and contracting back in, perpetually interconnected, though likely unaware (if awareness even plays into it) of this interconnectedness. Though this idea was not solely a Greek one, but can be found throughout various cultures that are both long dead and still extant, maybe it is the direct experience I have in the Greek isles which makes this hit home. That or the fact that these urns, or in their smaller more portable forms, chalices, likely held wine, or some other intoxicant (a distilled amanita muscaria perhaps?), which induced the kind of religious fervor that likely got Zeus drunk enough to screw around with the hot, olive-skinned Mediterranean ladies and have babies emerge from his thigh (Dionysus) and head (Athena).
This is where the idea for HESO came from, my anachronistic love of Greek mythology. And interconnectedness. And wine.
Actually it was probably after I was interconnected with some lovely ladies in Greece while drinking wine that I came up with the thought to create a culture magazine in Japan. Obvious, that.
The point being that wherever you are, and wherever I am, no matter how far apart, we are together. Jeez, that feels a bit too much like a Beatles’ song, though maybe you get the point. Whether it be hitching on the crowded streets of Shibuya or walking the lonely backroads of Mongolia, just look down at the only thing that everyone – no matter how different they may appear to be- has: your belly button, and know that you are not alone.
Hopefully the beach you wind up camping out at is like this one
If you’re like me and you find yourself sleeping in parks (or should you be lucky enough to be on some coast, the beach), perhaps you should widen your horizons and stretch out that hitching thumb to get bound for parts (and parks) unknown, because if you are really like me and you have already donated, burned or stored all of your worldly belongings (except your camera, flask, flashlight and a change of underwear), then you may already be noticing a different world than that which the evening news programs speak. The world slows down and the sights change, sure, but it’s more than that. It’s the lesser senses which are more greatly affected when setting out on the open road. They get enhanced as it were: smell and hearing specifically. When in the fall those crisp winds begin blowing the leaves across sharp blue skies and all you can think of is pumpkin pie and finding someone with a warm bed for the coming winter, yeah, it’s that old chimney smoke smell of fireplaces reeling you in again. A call and response with mother nature and father time. Come the warm winds of spring it’s time to stretch the legs and set out again. Here are a few rules to live by:
The first step in hitchhiking is to lose oneself in the road and allay all fear. That sounds a lot like some esoteric Buddhist precept whose punchline ends in, “…and don’t look down…” in the middle of crossing a spindly rope bridge one thousand feet above a jagged rock crested gorge. Nonetheless, this is true. And not at all harder to accomplish than reading these words. Just as Gautama Buddha taught the path to the Way rather than teaching the Way itself, so too must we approach the mindset necessary to successfully hitchhike rather than concentrate upon some supposed concretized set of values ascribable to any and all situations. The tree which bends with the gale wind survives the Typhoon, and not the mighty, inflexible oak.
Second, as implied above, you may need to reinvent yourself with each prospective driver, assuming you can speak their language. The first thought being the purest, usually works best. I have portrayed, all within a few hours of each other a: Aloha-shirt clad tourist, journalist, expectant father, wandering priest, drunken government consultant, wayward fiance trying to reunite with my soon to be betrothed, yakuza-hunted whistle-blower, and almost boring by comparison, a photographer (though all of these at one time were likely true). This again depends on your ability to communicate, so cultivating imaginative gestures cannot be underestimated. Carry lots of candy too.
Third, act the fool. It’s a playful game for you and an exciting new adventure for your chauffeur, who will be telling this around the water cooler (or teapot) for years to come. I suggest alternatively smiling, whistling, making faces at the kids, bowing, tap-dancing (perhaps oddly or not, this has always gotten me a ride very quickly, maybe because I look more like I have Parkinson’s disease than just being a weird American…), anything short of taking off your clothes or cursing the majority of passing vehicles who will not only not stop for you, but likely wouldn’t even help an old woman if she fell in the street.
Fourth, in the event of being stranded (though that is the goal, there is a gray area between being nicely stranded within easy reach of a convenience store, which means you’re ten minutes away from another ride, and being dropped off by a wacky tourist on a lonely road at dusk, i.e. screwed), unsure or feeling at all like this road is not the way you need to be going, make for the nearest convenience store, which are the lifeblood of the successful hitchhiker. Above all keep hydrated, keep the blood flowing, keep moving, it’ll keep you warm in winter and breezy in summer.
Fifth, start early. Hitching after dark is difficult and dangerous. Plus the likelihood that a generous family or some rave-going hottee will pick you up and offer you comfort, food and shelter for the night significantly drops alongside the setting sun. In northern countries in the summertime this is not as much a problem as it is in Japan for instance, where at the summer solstice daylight peaks at 7:45pm. All that considered your chances of being picked up by some friendly neighborhood Yakuza do increase the darker it gets, which may or may not be a good thing, depending on how many fingers you have. You may want to spread out your sleeping bag on any patch of grass you find and hunker down with your flask for the night.
Buddha says, From here carry a flashlight & a flask
Overall, hitchhiking is a pretty solitary pursuit, some would even say boring. You get used to being alone, walking down roads you have no idea of where they end, talking to yourself, drinking, urinating, bathing in public. It’s a strange kind of amusement. One night on the pacific coast of Shizuoka while drinking a bottle of Bass Ale (somehow cheaper than the domestic brands) on the corner of the main square after a long day of hitching, I overheard:
Three old men shuffling by half-soused, pointing to a coffee can on the bench next to me, “See, Shimizu’s a good town. They have ashtrays for the people.” General nodding (Um Um…) and agreement from the other two.
From an old couple passing the opposite way carrying plastic grocery bags and the man nodding in my direction says to the woman: “So, those kind of people live here too?”
“Huh?”
Either he meant people who drink beer outside the station at 9pm on Thursday nights or white guys in their 30s, although both are not out of the question. So starved as I for any kind of human interaction my mind immediately jumped to possible alternatives I’ve heard mentioned previously:
- Handsome, gay Italian ex-pats.
- Goatee dye models
- Anyone with one extremely unruly and overly long eyebrow hair that has a habit of creeping down and playing footsie with the eyelashes.
- People who sit on benches adjacent to unsuccessful fortune tellers (automatically bad for business, but shouldn’t he have known that?).
- Nighttime readers of Salman Rushdie (The Moor’s Last Sigh).
- Guys who at some point ponder masturbation as the high point (dinner’s dessert if you will) of the evening, then reconsider, citing public exposure ordinances, only to flip flop (at least) one more time if only because the thought of getting sand everywhere is a turn off, then thinking that this might actually be kind of sexy, gritty maybe, but passing out in the sand before getting anything done.
