Kibbutzing in Kyoto

And now that we have that little surprise out of the way, I can get on with Dax Watches Movies. This all happened before I watched Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, but I wanted to put it after (above) the post about the film because I did say that my next post, that one, would be about a movie.

By the way, her name is Foxy Cleopatra. Because I was watching Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold like an idiot, instead of going to the hospital to be near my wife while Foxy was born. Oh, and Foxy because of Pam Grier, but I didn't really have to type that out, did I?

I was never promised a rose garden, and I am not the type of person to expect one but I was promised a wedding party. I won't say by whom, but a wedding party was promised. For such purpose, I shlepped my tuxedo (not the rental in the wedding photos, but my actual tux), and two of my best suits and all the extra bits to Tokyo. Well, it turns out that I brought an extra bag because there was/will be no wedding party. Instead, Kohei-san had planned a tidy little three day trip to Kyoto for Ali and me. Kohei and Genya Number Two would shadow. Separate hotels and trains and such, but they were never not there. That turned out to be a good thing.

On the second day Ali and her father were feeling a little under the weather. I put that down to the deep-fried fish bones they ate the night before at the sexiest restaurant I've ever been to. Ali was not doing well for a completely different reason, and slowly got worse as the day progressed. In the early hours of the third day, Ali conked my forehead with a hotel tumbler and rather loudly said, "Hello Fuckface. Get up and ring [Genya Number Two]. You stupid fuckface, get up!" I still can't pronounce the guy's name, but whatever. I dialed the number, so many numbers, and before I could even get my trousers on the night manager was there with two really big dudes and a stretcher. Moments later, GNT and Kohei arrived and rang for an ambulance. The two big dudes went away with the stretcher, and three dudes with a stretcher replaced them. These guys looked official, they had white helmets and first aid kits and all that. We went downstairs to the ambulance and while Ali, Kohei and I waited in the back of the van, GNT and the driver spoke in hushed tones about which hospital to take us to. The driver got a little excited and at that point GNT had to speak over him. I'm guessing GNT doesn't like to raise his voice because that was the last thing said by anybody apart from radio chatter until we arrived at Kyoto First Red Cross Hospital.

It's at this point that I should mention that Japanese hospitals are weird. I've never been in a hospital where everything except the emerg is shut between 8:00 pm and 8:00 am. Ali was in labour, so the doctor admitted her and gave her some muscle relaxants to delay contractions and antibiotics for nothing. She was four and a half weeks early, so the doctor didn't want things to escalate. Because we had some very expensive non-refundable shinkansen tickets and I had an assignment due, we swapped out. Ali's mum came down to Kyoto and Kohei, GNT and I all went back to Tokyo. I buried my nose in the books and had the assignment done in record time - all for nought, but I didn't know that then.

Two days pass, and we wait. We got the call while watching Cleopatra Jones, at about 10:00 that Ali was going into the delivery room. We were standing on the platform at Tokyo Station waiting for our train to Kyoto when we got another call. The baby was born. I had to wait for a third call before I could know the gender. Mr. and Mrs. K don't say a lot when they talk to each other. Which is why we didn't know sooner that Ali was in labour and why several calls are needed sometimes. Speaking later with the doctor, the only person in Kyoto besides the overworked hotel clerk who actually tried to speak English, I was informed that Foxy came out so fast there was an audible "pa-shoon" sound in the delivery room.

This time, I brought my books with me. GNT set me up in a business hotel, not the nice hotel I was in the first time I was in Kyoto. I don't know where he stayed and I don't want to know, but he wore the same clothes and they never got dirty. Mr. and Mrs. K stayed somewhere downtown close to Kyoto Tower. On the second day, Foxy had to be transferred to the NICU and be held for observation. She did well, and was released earlier than expected but after a reasonably safe time in the hospital. In perhaps a surreal way, we did some more sightseeing in Kyoto while Ali and Foxy were in the hospital.

It was starting to get to me. My hotel included Viking, which is what many Japanese people say to refer to a buffet meal. They know they are the only ones who say it, so when a gaijin like myself walks into the restaurant, they also say buffet but in the French way not the American way with the short u. It always makes me laugh to hear it that way because it reminds me every time of a line in La Reine Margot when Daniel Auteuil as Henri says he wants to get down and dirty with the Queen. All the chicks in my French class cringed. Back to the point - it was getting to me. Every morning I was reminded of Randy at the deli (or delica as they say in Japan) in Patterson:

"Who do I have to blow to get some decent pumpernickel in this place?" Spoons dropped, and chatter stopped but somebody quickly ushered Randy's less than acceptable Reuben away.

"You know they're gonna spit in the new one, dude".

"I don't care. If it's quality bread I'll take my chances". Not for a second did I think he was serious, and he wasn't. He checked.

I couldn't get any milk for my tea. I was getting rather frustrated because they always gave me cream as if it's the same thing. It's not, it cannot be. Even after painstakingly using words that I know they use in Japanese, the staff still couldn't understand. I guess because even if I say it perfectly, I'm still a gaijin so I can't possibly be saying something Japanese. The only thing that prevented me from getting angry was a little perspective. I thought back to Donny K., and the hissy he threw because he couldn't get a proper cuppa in the Andes. At the time I thought he was being ridiculous. I felt like offering to go outside and milk the nearest llama, but Don was serious so I thought I shouldn't make light. In my situation, it would have seemed even more ridiculous to have a hissy because I wasn't sitting in a shack at a multinational goldmine in Peru. I was in Kyoto, and if I swung a cat I'd hit at least one mini-mart, and a pachinko parlour. So instead, I told myself it could be worse and sipped my tea, ate my scrambled eggs wih chopsticks and listened to Bryan Adams muzak. So perfectly Japanese.

On my last night in Kyoto Mr. K decided it was time to eat. He often thinks of food, in fact he never stops thinking of food. We had to find a place to eat. We roamed the back streets of Kyoto and I spied a sign for Red Stripe. I said we should eat there because they have Red Stripe. Boy, was I wrong. After being mocked by the waitress, I went to the barman and led him outside to the poster of Red Stripe. He apologized and said that the poster was actually for a promo and handed me a flyer for a Jamaican dancehall gig that was happening up the street every Saturday. Like many people, I can't turn down Jamaican dancehall but there was Perspective again, encouraging me to think about my wife and newly arrived daughter. I just shook my head and asked for two large Asahi. It was during this meal that I witnessed the near collapse of a marriage and the birth of a new plan. Flowcharts and timelines determined what was in the best interests of everyone involved. Mr. K, myself and GNT would again return to Tokyo and Mrs. K would stay there to help Ali with anything.

Ali and Foxy and Mrs. K came home when Foxy was a week old, and I met them at Tokyo Station. Foxy is a good baby. She doesn't cry and she sleeps most of the time. I almost want to say that Enzo J didn't get enough sleep when he was that age because I remember that he was up a lot. Sissy was fixing bottles too often it seemed. That's a step Ali has managed to avoid, but it just feels like this baby is too easy.

Northern Monkies and Southern Fairies

So it was pretty shitty here in Tokyo for the last week or so. I did mention in one of my videos that I hate Tokyo. That is not entirely correct. I like Tokyo, but I don't like some things about Tokyo. I may have mentioned in an earlier post that I can be a nightmare house guest, and that almost happened last week. I'm trying to remain positive, so I won't dwell but I am starting to feel a little like Bob Harris. Not the guy who used to do The Old Grey Whistle Test on BBC, but the guy in Lost in Translation. As it turns out, that is exactly the problem.

My wife recommended that we rent a few videos, and so we went to Tsutaya and got three. I always have to be pushed to watch a Wes Anderson film, but I did in this case as it seemed the shop had way too many copies available. We also rented Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, a film I'd always meant to see but which was marketed in very strange way. Which is the secondary reason why I still haven't seen Snatch, the primary reason being Brad Pitt. We got a third film starring Jean Reno which I know nothing about. I got around to watching Lock, Stock and Two Barrels today, and it was really nice. A little violent and very similar graphically to another Mathew Vaughn film, Layer Cake. You may have heard of it. Oh, did I mention? I watched Casino Royale before I left Newark. Very good work from Daniel Craig albeit in the ironclad James Bond format, but I like his work in Layer Cake better. Layer Cake. Dexter Fletcher of Layer Cake and also of Press Gang co-stars as Soap alongside Jason Statham as Bacon and Nick Moran as Eddie, investors in a card game. Moran is the card player and is warned by his father played by Sting to not play cards. Where does Sting find the time? Anyway, Eddie goes to the game which is fixed and loses his shirt - and 500,000 pounds.

He finds a way to steal the money back, by ripping of his neighbours who are in turn planning to do what we like to call a grow rip. That is, they plan to rob a marijuana growing/selling operation run by as it seems Steven Mackintosh aka Winston who also played Nigel, the best friend in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4. It's only tended by Winston, and is run by Rory Breaker who also happens to be the proposed client of the grow rip proceeds. Only because the rippers don't really know the rippees, or that Breaker runs the show. The sale is brokered by Nick the Greek, a bumbling fence who only knows half the story, as does anyone else.

All the while, the guy who set up the crooked card game also really, really, pretty please wants two rifles that are up for auction. Only he doesn't want them to go to auction. He wants them to be stolen so he asks his Genya to arrange the acquisition. Barry "the Baptist" played by Lenny McLean recruits two "Northern Monkeys", Gary and Dean played by Victor McGuire and Jake Abraham respectively. There's also a collector who plays a part in all of this, but he stays on the periphery with Sting until the very end.

So Gary and Dean retrieve the rifles as requested, but because they are not in the gun cabinet, they claim them as their own and sell them to Nick the Greek, who sells them to his associate Tom, Jason Flemyng who needs some firepower for the rip. The first group of thieves go to the grow op and make a complete cock up of the whole thing, but get away with the money and as much weed as they can carry. Eddie, Soap, Bacon and Tom are all waiting back at the neighbours' ready to take the money. For some stupid reason, they only take the money next door to Eddie's flat. The neighbours find it, and when Rory Breaker comes calling he catches the first group rather than the group that has been ratted out by Nick the Greek. Rory's group and the first group pretty much finish each other off, meanwhile Gary and Dean have been warned that they must locate the two missing rifles. Unknowingly, the two attempt to get the rifles back from the guy who wanted them in the first place. Gary and Dean don't last long against the two rifles, but end up eliminating Barry and his boss in the process. The collector, who works for the boss too, had delivered the 500,000 pound account moments before, only to be told to retrieve it by one of the original thieves whom he stole it from in the first place, and who was now holding the collector's son hostage. After being summoned, Eddie and Tom go back to the boss' office only to find Gary, Dean, Barry and the boss all dead. Eddie takes the money, and Tom stays behind to collect the rifles. He really likes them for some reason. In a panic, on the way back to the office to get the money, the collector rams Eddie's car and manages to wrangle the money back. Eddie, Tom, Soap and Bacon are all sent down for the crime, but are released because they are not part of the original group and the only witness cannot identify them. The four decide that they don't need the money because the debt is no longer collectible, at which time the collector comes in with the money bag. He hands it to them with a fair warning that if they ever try to find him, he will kill them. He leaves Sting's bar and rides off into the sunset with his son. The group open the bag only to find that it is empty save for an auction catalogue. Tom has been sent off to destroy the rifles because these are the only things that connect them to the crime. While he is away, the three remaining thieves discover that the rifles are worth upwards of 250,000 pounds each. They frantically try to ring him as the movie ends with Tom trying to answer his phone and grab the rifles as he hangs precariously off the rail of a bridge.

The ending leaves it open for interpretation. Did Tom fetch his beloved guns and race off into the night to profit at auction? Or did he take them back to the bar so that each could gain equally? Or did he let the guns fall into the river? I hate these endings. All that work to tie everything together and Guy Ritchie leaves one little thread hanging. Silly. Apart from the ending, a very good movie. I would like to see more work from Nick Moran. Maybe when I get back to Newark.

I don't hate Tokyo anymore. I hate the fact that my credit cards work at half a dozen cash machines in the city, and that Visa in particular employs staff to lie to me about it even after I have been put on record as having told them so. I hate that people don't listen to me and assume they know what I want more than I do. I got together with Yumi yesterday, an old acquaintance and she showed me around. It was quite nice. We found a Tully's, and hid in there for awhile. That is the first time I've ever had to wait to be seated at a coffee shop - and that is exactly what Yumi hates about Tokyo. Later we went for Indian food. Very nice. I came home and watched the Monte Carlo Grand Prix in Japanese. It was a good day.