This is an update to a long delayed blog( a long one!):

Realty seemed more unreal to me then when I was in an unconscious state at the hospital from Feb. to March.
Most people think that they're going crazy because they confuse hallucinations with realty. I soon realized the difference between the two when I saw El Greco's painting, "View of Toledo" on my hospital room's wall. I mentioned to the nurse that it was one of my favorite paintings. She replied that they didn't have El Greco's painting on the wall. I looked again and sue enough it wasn't there. I realized that it was a hallucination.

I then had several more.

I thought I was reading a newspaper, when I tried turn the page the newspaper vanished. The same thing happened when I thought I was reading a movie magazine.
Instead of getting freaked out about this, I realized that I could have fun with hallucinations. I mentioned to a nurse that I saw some escaped laboratory rats scurrying across the floor. She told me that the hospital didn't have any laboratory rats and she asked me why I thought they were laboratory rats. I told her it was because they were all wearing white coats and started laughing like a lunatic.
The nurse didn't realize I was making a joke. I felt that it was a sign that I wasn't going crazy because I could make a joke about hallucination. But the nurse was convinced that I was in fact a lunatic.

"Hell is other people."

This is a quote from the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre( I think) the best describes the real lunatics who shared my hospital ward. They all had certain peculiarities.
One was a Japanese-American who seemed possessed with notions of utopian societies and talked endlessly about them. He seemed to be a guru of sorts who had quite a following. There seemed to be a constant stream of university age young people who visited his bedside to listen to his diatribes.

One day when my dear Chizuko was paying me a visit I asked her what he was going on about. She replied that he kept on talking about money.
One time he invited a group of his followers to his hospital room, for discussion session. What caught my attention was an American girl saying that she went through hell growing up in the farming community of Yuba City, California.
I was of the opinion that listening to her snot-nosed b.s. was far more hellish.
I just wanted to read my book(the written word had ceased the "vanishing point" by then).

Hell was, for me, being in a room in which all the other patients talked in their sleep-, for hours. Keeping me awake. It was like being a room filled with "motor-mouthed somnambulists".
One particular loony would get out of bed and search the hospital room for something or someone, I don't know which. All I knew for sure was I couldn't sleep at night. I told the nurses and doctors that this, not an ammonia imbalance was making me crazy. The next day they moved me to another, quieter room.

"Angels of Mercy".

The up-side of my experience was the great nurses.
They were all cheerful and understanding.
One nurse whose main duty was drawing blood samples was always smiling.
When she drew the blood samples she never cause any pain or discomfort and never left a syringe mark.
My favorite nurse was Mika who seemed incapable of saying a sentence without saying "Thank you". She liked to talk to me about the books I was reading and about food. She was also a big movie buff. I tried to get her to say a sentence in English without saying "Thank you". I said "Mika, when a person says Thank you to you, your answer would be You Are Welcome." Mika said "So I say you're welcome when they say Thank You."
"That right"
"That' right? .......Thank you!"

When one is hospitalized for a long time(5 weeks in my case) one notices certain quirks in nurses behavior or mannerisms. There was one nurse i saw everyday who introduced herself to me every time I saw her. I'll never forget that her name was "Marie". I always wondered if she had a deep fear of someone forgetting her name.

Only one anxiety was sometimes in the back of my mind. The previous time I spend a long duration in a hospital was when I had to have my knee rebuilt in Portland, Oregon.It was during the 1972 Olympics when the Israeli Olympic team was taken hostage and killed by terrorists. This time while hospitalized in Tokyo, The World Baseball Classic was being televised. I would sometimes be reminded of the 1972 Olympic tragedy.
A lengthy stay in a hospital is a good way to think about many things and to get a new perspective on one's life. I do miss those "Angels of Mercy" a lot.

Thank You!

This blog is in the memory of Jim Jedlicka who passed away at the age of 83 of renal failure on March 13.
At first, I thought that questionable taste to write this blog, as Jim Jedlicka was about to enter the "Big Sleep". Jim's wife, my sister Linda assured me that given Jim's sense of humor, he would aprove of my contribution.( to be continued....)



"Martin's Meltdown"
Thucydides the famouse Greek statesman, historian, and seaman wrote in the 4th century B.C. quoted a collision at sea can ruin your whole day. Some events foretell the impending arrival of more than an ordinary "bad hair day".
I knew I was in for one of these when I woke up in the hospital tied securely to my bed.
I thought I was in a scene from the movie"Bull Durham", a movie about baseball in which Susan Sarandon plyas the "High Priestess" of the church of baseball. And she ties Tim Robbins to the bed and keeps him up all night reading him poetry.
Unfortunately, Susan Sarandon had not tied me to my bed.
And my choice of poetry would have been "Charles Bukowski"certainly not "Lord Byron".

It turns out that I had been lying in bed unconscious for 2 days
and had been in a coma.
The last I remember was that I went to the toilet at my home bleeding like an ebola virus victim. I was experiencing severe leg muscle spasms. The next thing I knew I was looking into the eyes of a smiling nurse who seemed happy that I was conscious.
A short time later my wife and son came to my bedside, but I was not sure who anyone was.
For some reason, I thought I was in Mexico and I couldn't figure out why all the pretty senoritas were speaking to me in Japanese.

It seems that the ammonia balance in my brain was way out of kilter.Ammonia helps stabilize your mental functions and if it is too out of balance you can go berserk. I wasn't accustomed
to this state of mind, having gone bersek before.

I regained my bearings well enough to realize that something very unsual had befallen me.(to be continued....)

Dear All of you who might be in the here & now.
Don't take it for granted that your government does. It's
a sorta "reverse paranoia" ("I have this feeling that I'm
always following someone"...from the late, great George
Carlin, my guru). Instead, it's the realization that my
government (or agencies) has lost track of my being here
& now. I came to realize this state of affairs when I
applied for my Social Security Benefits. Using the
internet I found that they had no record of me. My
application was somewhere lost in cyberspace. I resorted
to an antiquated device, the telephone, to find out why
I no longer exist. Did I die and no one bothered to tell
me? Beatle Paul McCartney commmented on this in regards
to people perceiving a cryptic message from a Beatles'
tune to mean "Paul is dead". "I'd probably be the last
to know", he quipped. This sort of thing happens when
records are run backwards...which seems to be what the
U.S. Social Security Agency did to my records, not to
compare them to the Beatles' records.

After moving to live & work in Japan I didn't need to
pay into Social Security. After 20 years this came
back to haunt me...or cause me inconvenience anyway.
It seems Social Security decided that I no longer
existed and assigned my SS# to someone else. To
paraphrase a favorite ditty of mine:
Yesterday I met a man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today,
Everyday, he isn't there,
Oh, how I wish he'd go away.
I've somehow become someone else! But, I won't go away.
As of now, the U.S. govt. & I have resolved this matter.
The embassy's staff were quite baffled by this at first
because they'd never encountered a case such a this
before. I wonder what the other person with my SS# is
going to do.

To quote an embassy staff member:"I mean, I can see
your documents and that you are you...I'm sure you've
doubted the fact."

I don't now doubt the fact that I am Me. I'll always
think of this whenever I hear someone say "I don't
know who I am...I need to find my identity and place
in this world!" Just ask your local embassy.

Yurz, Martin

On Friday night, Nov. 21st, Chizuko & I went to see the
legendary Booker T. & The MGs. I'd seen them live several
times before, both as solo acts and as back-up bands for
such stellar acts as Sam & Dave, and Otis Redding. I've
noticed that the Booker T. guys on record and performing
live are two different experiences. It seems that the
record producers toned down the group's sound to appeal
more to a general listening public. Live, they kick butt!

Booker T. was his usual masterful, meticulous self...playing
dead-on, perfecrly executed keyboard melodies. Bassist Donald
"Duck" Dunn gives a whole new dimension to "bottom" and "funk"
to his Fender bass...and he does it so effortlessly. Steve
Cropper's guitar work should be studied by every young
"Jimmy Page wannabee." Cropper mixes lead guitar lines with
rythym licks and fills so seamlessly that it defies mere
technique. No bombastics or in-your-face hot licks, just
the ultimate in electric guitar playing sense of timing
and taste.

What was of particular interest to me was that as a
result of Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn providing the
driving force to the Blues Brothers movies and live
shows, some people came to the Tokyo Blue Note thinking
that the Blues Brothers band's music would be played. One
guy even came wearing a Blues Brothers' get-up. What the
audience got was a healthy helping of Memphis Soul Stew.

I first heard "Green Onions", the MGs first hit in 1962,
around the same time as the Chubby Checker "Twist" craze.
To me, there was no comparison. A bunch of white people
doing the Twist looked ludicrous, whereas I could feel,
even taste, Green Onions. The Twist still looks absurd,
even more so than in the 60's, Green Onions still sounds
real. Give me that Stax/Volt sound anytime.

Yurz, Martin

The Rock band Queen never appealed to me. I considered them
overblown and everything that Punk Rock was railing about in
terms of popular music. That being said, I have to give the
blokes some credit...I think Brian May is a brilliant axe-man
on the guitar, and I think Queen's tunes "Crazy Little Thing
Love" & their bicycle ditty were great. I especially liked
the bicycle song.

Living in San Francisco near the top of a hill (most places
in SF are either uphill or downhill from someplace else),
riding a bicycle in my neighborhood could be considered to
be a suicide attempt. I didn't have a bike for years, though
I seemed permanently attached to one when I was a kid. Then
came motorbikes and scooters (how I loved my Vespa!) which
almost got me killed.

For several years after coming to work & live in Japan I
was without a bicycle, or any other means of getting
about other than mass transit or taxis. When we moved to
a neighborhood near the urban mass of Tokyo, I bought a
bike. I felt free as a bird until the local cops kept
stopping me to check whether my bike had been reported
stolen. They still do from time to time.


My first bike was a 3-speed shopping bike (called a
"charinko" in Japanese...which could mean either the
sound of its bell or the sound of jingling coins...
I've heard different opinions). The bike had
"Fortissimo" emblazed on its frame. I thought that
was funny because the term could be translated to
mean "noisy" or "loud" in Italian. To the Japanese,
it sounded foreign and sporty. My bike was neither
foreign nor sporty but I rode the daylights out of it
for years. It finally just flat wore out.


I then upgraded my bikes to snazzy mountain bikes,
the expensive ones kept getting stolen in spite of my
locks. So I got a cheapo Spalding and it has lasted
years...in spite of assaults upon it and my person.

In Japan there are traffic mirrors at many intersections.
These give a bike-rider a false sense of security as
other riders (often in a hurry to get to the train
station) may ignore them and come zooming through the
intersection, often causing collisions with others.
This has happened to me several times. I sometimes feel
that I need "body armor" before going out riding.

There has been a lot of discussion as to bike safety
in Japan. What many civic planners don't seem to be
able to realize is that streets in urban areas are
incredibly congested. It's a policy now that bike
riders no longer cycle on sidewalks to avoid hitting
pedestrians. Where is a cyclist supposed to go? Bike
lanes have been proposed, but putting them on narrow
streets with auto traffic speeding by is an invitation
to roadside mayhem. I could go on and on about this,
but I won't for now. I'll just avoid busy streets and
enjoy the bikepaths along the river near my house...
but don't get me started talking about crazed joggers
and wierdo dog walkers!


Yurz, Martin

At a recent visit to my doctor about a particular symptom
of stress and anxiety, the doc suggested that I take some
tests (you know how docs like to read test results). Upon
reading the test results, he concluded that there was no
big problem with me other than the physical carnage that I
call a biological body. Perhaps some psycological help
would do me well. So I consulted a "shrink" on this problem.
To my distress, the shrink was a Yankees fan. I'm of the
opinion that rooting for the Yankees was like rooting for
Microsoft. The "mind scrambler" referred me back to my
original doc. He suspected that the problem was genetic
in origin.

More tests followed. Sure enough, I've got a rogue "Baseball
Gene" from my mother's side of the family, and a tad from
my father's in laws. I have several uncles, as well as my
grandfather, in my mother's family, who were baseball players.
And some were pretty good, too. My uncle Earl played 18 years
in the minor leagues. My father said that Earl was the most
left-handed person he ever knew. "He even walks left-handed"
said Dad. Earl was a great "glove-man" who was so skilled
that he could play every position. "I've had enough 'cups
of coffee' with the Cardinals (St. Louis Cardinals) to fill
a coffee urn." said uncle Earl. He did teach me how to hit
left-handed and have a sharp eye for the strike zone. To
this day I have no patience for batters who swing at pitches
out of the strike zone...they almost always strike out.

The World Series is over and the Phillies "took home the
cake". There's a lot of confusion about the term "World
Series" in that many countries play baseball and don't
participate in the series. There is now a World Professional
Baseball contest that is supposed to settle that gripe. it's
contrived and doesn't really settle anything but "bragging
rights" between the participating countries.

As I understand the history, the original World Series was
an idea cooked up by the Chicago World newspaper...and the
original term for the competition for baseball supremacy
between the established National League and the upstart
American League, was the "World's Series."

In any case, the baseball season is played and done, and
I'm in a "blue funk". From my childhood days there was a
baseball game on the radio and/or TV every day, all
summer long. The season concluded just before Halloween.
It was a part of daily life as I was growing up. I think
the Ken Burns video tape series on baseball is the best
depiction of the history and reach of the sport played on
Elysian fields. He became so obsessed with the production
of the video that it ruined his marriage. Not even his
production of the American "War Between The States" could
do that.

I'm in sort of a vacuum, emotionally and sentimentally,
about what to do if there isn't a baseball game on. What
am I supposed to read about when I pick up a newspaper?
Politics? The economy? Weird things that people do to
each other? Where's my box-score on all this. Baseball
reduces life to its basic enjoyment of "Throw the ball,
hit the ball, catch the ball...and then decide what to
do with it."

If life could be so simple...not to say that baseball
doesn't have its own myriad complexities.

Yurz, Martin

Ornithology is not my strong suit, although I like living
things that can fly. The abilility to fly through the air
like a bird is the image that often inspires our dreams.
In Japan, the Karasu (Jungle Crow the size of a raven) is
viewed with contempt. My Grandmother could teach crows to
talk, and took in a family of crows (they're very territorial)
to protect her corn...as her friendly crows would drive off
their rival crows. It must have been her Native American
genes that gave her such awareness.

At the park near my home here in Japan, I like to sit on a
park bench near the cedar trees at dusk. Before it gets too
dark and the skies turn the color of lavender, small birds
(I don't know if they're swallows or sparrows) fly about
in tight swoops to catch flying insects for their supper.
When the skies become darker, little bats take over the
airborne insect harvesting duties. The bats are much
better flying acrobats than the birds. I marvel at their
aerial ballet. I don't expect to see a version of "Bat
Lake" anytime soon, however...unless it's by Tim Burton.

In Japan, newspaper holidays are observed one Monday
every month. No daily newspapers are delivered on that
day, although one can still buy sports papers and tabloid
rags at convenience stores. This past Monday I went for
my usual twilight walk in the park and noticed that there
were no bats swooping through the air in pursuit of the
flying bugs. Is there a "bat holiday" in Japan? I wonder.

Another subject concerning the bats is: where do they live?
I often see sparrows' nests in the eaves of nearby apart-
ment buildings...even at the train stations. But even as
I bicycle around my neighborhood, I've never seen a bat's
lair. We don't have caves or bellfries around here, so where
do they hang upside down and sleep all day? Secretive and
elusive creatures, these bats.

Yurz, Martin

I love my neighborhood. It's convenient, close to the harried
mobs of downtown Tokyo, but a 20 minute train-ride puts me
to an entire other reality. There are still farms here where
for \100 I can buy a big bag of eggplants, onions, okra and
new potatoes. It takes a short bike ride to do so. Thoughts
of moving from here cause me sweaty-hand-wringing.

One block from our house is the Jindai Danshi (a Danshi
being somewhat of a low-rent apartment building) and another
block away is the Nogawa River (a glorified creek). I take a
walk or two through the area every day.

I especially like the park at Jindai Danshi. There are big
cedar trees, lots of benches (where I like to sit and read
my newspaper or book) and the "Sand Pit", as I refer to it.
The Sand Pit is a concrete "bowl" (sort of) with sand at its
bottom. Kids run circles around the concrete or slide down
its slopes. Mothers, sometimes fathers, take their kids to
enjoy the Pit. Sliding down the slopes is very popular.
Some kids flatten cardboard boxes from the near-by Super-
market to give them more speed as they slide down the sides.
Some mothers freak out that their children will get their
clothes dirty, some just take the attitude of "Let the kids
play, getting dirty is part of being a kid."

My favorite episode as I sat in the park was watching a
mother play "hide & seek" with her young son. He covered
his eyes while his mother hid behind a cedar tree. Then,
when she said go, he was supposed to find here. The mother
hid behind the tree for a long time, not knowing that her
son had joined the other kids at the Sand Pit.

"Would you like to take a walk in the park,
Stroll hand-in-hand before it gets dark?
You know a girl like you isn't so easy to find,
I'd like to make you all mine,
To keep me company, don't you see
That's the way it should be."
-lyrics by 60's~70's band Sopwith Camel.

Or the counterpoint: Tom Lehrer's
Let's Go Poison Pigeons In The Park."

My Stephen King-channeling-self imagined
the Sand Pit in the park as being part of a
gigantic trap-door spider's plan to devour
young humans. But I've often failed at presenting
myself as normal.

Martin

So here we are back in Tokyo after our West Coast U.S. trip.
San Francisco was (still is, according to some) a capital of
stand-up comedy, which in Japan involves seemingly endless
uses of one comedian slapping another comedian on the head
with a folded paper fan...slapstick fan humor, anyone.
I encountered double-reverse culture shock in a way. I felt
it difficult to relate to both the land of my birth and the
land where I've lived for the past 20 years. In spite of
my familiarity with both lands I could sort of relate to the
novel "Stranger In A Strange Land." But that's my problem.

What I could relate to was my neighborhood and its flower-
basket qualities. It seems everytime I turn around or turn
the corner while riding my trusty (getting rusty) bicycle, I
see flowers blooming. Every tree or shrub seems to take
turns presenting lovely displays of blossoms.
Now it's the "Crape-Myrtle" or "Sarusuberi" trees at festooning our locale with pink and white blossoms.


It's reassuring to know that no matter how alienated one may feel, blossoms tend to ease the angst. I don't remember who
first said it but I recall, "Is this the first blossoming
of love, or are we just blooming idiots?" I suspect Ogden
Nash or Noel Coward...but I'll take being a "blooming
idiot" anytime. Idiocy in such matters becomes me...and
eases transitions if properly applied. Now don't get me
started about Van Gough and his manic sunflowers.

Yurz, Martin

We completed our West Coast US tour by taking an Amtrak train
from Portland, Oregon to Seattle and then on to Whidbey Island on Puget Sound. The train trip was pleasant but getting lunch nearly required elbow pads and a crowbar to negotiate the line snaking its way to the luncheon counter...and we were one of
the first in line! I made do with a kosher hot dog.

The train ride along Puget Sound made it all worthwhile. We could catch a quick view of Mt. Ranier as we passed through Tacoma. We finally arrived in Seattle. We passed Safeco Field where the Seattle Mariners allegedly play baseball. Live broadcasts of Mariners games are highlighted by the sounds of passing trains and their pitchers dishing up three-run home runs. We'd arrived safe and (Puget) sound in Seattle.

We were met by my Sis Linda and took a ferry boat to her and
hubby Jim's home on Whidbey Island. When we got there we were
dazzled by Sis's latest quilting projects. It seems that the
womenfolk in my family have a highly refined gene that deals
with such work as crochet and quilting skills. Given a needle
I think any one of them could perform heart surgery and knock
out a quilt for the patient's hospital bed at the same time.
Sis is exhibit "A" to this notion. Her work defies description.

The next day we were back on the ferry to Seattle to take in
its new library and a trip to Pike Market, one of my favorite
places on earth. Seattle's library is like no other library I
have ever seen. I almost expected Spiderman to come swinging
through the rafters at any moment. Pike Market is its usually
quirky self with seafood, vegetables and flowers galore. I
was able to buy some fresh Halibut (extremely hard to find
in Japan) and a mixture of wild chantrelle, morel and cepes
mushrooms...supper will be served and I'm gonna cook it, by
golly. Halibut poached in a wild mushroom consomme!






On the way to a farmer's market on Whidbey, we passed a
gathering of Model A Ford enthusiasts. I had to take a pic
of Chizuko next to a roadster that I would die for. If I
had the cash I would've bought it for her, but she'd have
trouble with the old fashioned gearshift. But with a silk
scarf and wide-brimmed hat, she'd turn a lot of heads in
Tokyo! Maybe even stop traffic!

Whidbey Island has been berry, berry good to me...in fact
to anyone who's been to a farmer's market there. It's a
fresh berry wonderland. Boysenberries, Loganberries, Blue-
berries, Raspberries and more! Sis bought a whole box of
them. We had fresh berry pie for dessert after I cooked
the halibut.




Finally, we had to wish Linda & Jim farewell before
returning (retuning?) to Japan.