The Pen Monster Blog

Now a normal artist would take the fact that the photo above was hanging in a few art galleries around Miyazaki Ken and stick it in their biography/ resume as a way to hype themselves up.

Like the legend himself, KRS-One, I too try to keep it real, so--

The only way this photo wouldn't have gotten hung was if I didn't submit it.

The show was part of the occasional, "We Actually Like foreigners! Really!" thing governments in small Japanese towns and cities like to do occasionally. Because they, unlike Japan's federal government, realize that they can't force Japanese women to become broodmares again and they need immigration in order to survive the next few decades. My photos hung because of my pigmentation.

Which is also why I had my job.

Keeping it real.

Real or not, I didn't even get an honourable mention when the Governor picked the winners of a contest I didn't know I was in the running for. The winner, a friend of mine, shared good touristy photos of smiling Japanese people and local landmarks shot in artistically fabulous manner, as was his tendency. Afterwards he pointed out that all of these contests don't want art, they wanted P.R..

I learnt something new that day which is obvious in hindsight.

A feather for my cap did come when three of the teachers from the local art school came over to have a chat with me about the photos. Which they though were the most interesting ones. They also thought my artist's statement with each image was hilarious. Which was my intent because, being a hilarious guy, I was keeping it real.

The cliche about kids is that they grow up pretty fast. When I look at these guys I realize they'd all be in university or working now and I'm unable to deny that I'm hella old. But it's the age that has led me to hope that, even if they don't remember me, I didn't have any negative influence on them.

Having a positive influence? That's the hope, isn't it?

A little over a decade ago now my Japanese coworker wanted to know what I was listening to on my phone. "I don't know if this was popular here," I said as I pulled out the headphones. Smells Like Teen Spirit was playing.

"I know this song. My dad really liked it."

And then I shriveled up and blew away in the wind like the old brown leaf in November that I am.

Despite all of the previous evidence I had gathered in the two years I had been living there, one hot summer night I stuffed my camera into its bag, hopped on my ママチャリ, and headed downtown in the hopes of finding some people out and about to practice some street photography.

• Aside 1- See, Japanese don't stick around small cities if there are larger cities within drunk driving distance. Miyakonojo was right between Miyazaki and the even larger Kagoshima. The few young and hip the city still had were getting pissed elsewhere.

I knew the summer festival was a few weeks away but I have been surprised by smaller street events before. So who knew? Worst came to worst I'd just bike out to the mountains and try to photograph some nightscapes. Across the rivers, past the schools, through the parks, down the dark streets dimly lit by vending machines.

• Aside 2- The cliche about Japanese vending machines is true. Want a cola? Go find your nearest street corner. I will tell you this, they saved my bacon more than once while wandering the Japanese countryside in the heat.

I crossed the mostly dead main road through town. Only being used by people looking to get on the freeway. I tied up my bike at the many long-shuttered businesses, grabbed my bag, and headed out back to where the bars and izekaya sat.

I heard drums. Flutes. Kokyu. Old women singing old songs. The alley is dark. Dim lights ahead of me. Am I going to find a ghost story down this alley? Am I going to Spirited Away?

• Aside 3- It might have been for the best if I had been kidnapped by Yubaba given the series of health issues that started hitting me a couple of years after this photo was taken. Today I'd love the functioning spine required to cycle around town like that.

And, well, I found what you see above. I later found out who they were but that information has slid out of my brain over the past 13 years. They were putting on a show for the handful of family members and wanderers who happened to be around that night.

In a dark alley, in an empty downtown, one hot summer night in Japan.