Raindrops, Memories, Cars, and Vending Machine Coffee

It’s 0100 AM, and I find myself holding up someone with the power and strength of a lineman. I’m laughing as I look over at my cousin.

“Well, didn’t think my old football skills would come in handy again.” It felt like I was pushing those pads up. Out of nowhere, the lineman-sized man sprints in the opposite direction, chasing ghosts. I glance at my cousin. Here we go again.

The Wonders of Modern Technology

I met Aldrin through my cousin. He runs a brand called Kuruma and goes by the handle YellowFourty. As my cousin runs an up-and-coming brand called After930, it was inevitable that he would extend a helping hand. As some of you know, I manage a mostly failing lifestyle and media brand called LaidbackJDM. Although it was the equivalent of being the dumbest kid in the room, it was nice to be around like-minded people. Aldrin looked at Japan like I did when I first arrived. His bright eyes were excited to take in the foreign colors and scenes. Those landscapes had become dusty old paintings through my lens. What you may call jaded I call a realistic painting of my experience of our shared reality.

Aldrin shared his life story as we made our way down the expressway. He was a young manufacturing engineer living in California. After he had shared his income, I jokingly shared my envy.

It was a mistake moving to Japan, maybe I should have been an engineer, I thought as I watched small raindrops hit the passenger side window of my car. A passenger in my car, a passenger in my life. It seemed no matter what I did, I was in a hole I couldn’t dig myself out of.

Everyone Tells Me How Great My Life is Except Me

Human relationships are an elaborate dance that, despite being able to shuffle quite well, I have no rhythm for. There’s a little bit of push and pull when it comes to sharing information. Party A shares a bit of their life, then Party B does the same. When it came my turn to share about my life, I let him know a little about my life. Being autistic, I’ve come up with a bit of a script when I meet new people. This has been more the result of hundreds of beta tests than a natural intuition or evolution.

  • It’s my eighth year living in Japan
  • I’m allergic to everything
  • From Seattle
  • Thirty Years Old ☠️
  • Likes
    • Gaming
    • Cars
    • Anime
    • Music

Once you know those things about me, that’s all there is to know. My life is neither interesting, fascinating, or worth documenting. I’m writing this blog for the poor kid who has the unfortunate luck of landing on me for his Holodeck Report of a person living in the 21st century. Even upon sharing these small bits of my life with Aldrin, he seemed to think it was genuinely cool to live in Japan. Everyone thinks it’s awesome to live in Japan; for a small percentage of people, it is. I’m not a part of that percentage. I think when you live here long enough, you no longer see it as a Paradise.

Japan is not a Theme Park, Paradise, or Alien Land, it’s simply another place on earth where people live. Sometimes, it’s a very nice place to live, but like anywhere else, there are imperfections. But wabi-sabi is what makes things beautiful no?

JDM Paradise: Daikoku Futo

One of the places that have become known as a “JDM Paradise” is a parking area called Daikoku Futo. It really is just another Japanese parking area. From the mid to late 80s to the early 2000s, it was a place where real Japanese Hashiriya(走り屋 Hashiriya Japanese for Street Racer) would meet up before or after doing their runs on the highway. Now it’s just a place for rich people, Instagram clout chasers, or tourists to see because it is “the spot”. While not nearly as lame as takeovers, which endanger the lives of idiots stupid enough to attend them, it’s sad to see an element of my beloved car subculture turn into a commercialized tourist attraction.

The parking lot was filled with Y-Plates and わ plates. Military guys who have made JDM cars expensive and foreigners renting sports cars to crash into the off-ramp. All this activity has led to more police crackdowns and free shaken inspections. What a waste of Kanagawa residents’ tax-payers ‘ money. Wait, don’t I live in Kanagawa? Even though a part of me hates what JDM Sub-Culture has become, they might as well turn this parking area into a theme park at this point. Put more restaurants, a paid parking garage, and repeatedly blast the Teriyaki Boyz, and maybe we can make tolls cheaper.

Occasionally, you can get lucky and watch people drifting the warf. . . or you used to be able to until they put a barricade up. . . That’s right; fun isn’t allowed in Japan.

本物が欲しい I want The Real Thing

In one of my favorite light novel turned anime, Oregairu, the main character gets emotional when he talks about wanting to break the veil. When I go to places like Tokyo Auto Salon, Daikoku, or the “Underground Tokyo Meet,” I’m bothered by the facade. For tourists coming to Japan for the first time, Auto Salon or Daikoku might be awesome. This also applies to JDM influencers who seem to play characterized versions of themselves. As someone who’s seen the man behind the curtain and has sweet memories of real hashiriya, it is like watching an Elvis impersonator in Vegas. While in these “JDM” tours, the lights, glitz, and glamour existed, what I craved was authenticity. I missed watching the everyman who had driven the same road for his whole life.

Looking at the Raindrops Thinking Why I’m Here

What made me fall in love with JDM car culture was how humble it started. My friend, who was working on a Fred Meyer salary, built a right-hand drive Nissan 240SX in his outdoor garage. I remember driving to East Tacoma and helping him wrench on it. My fingers still go numb when I think about how cold it was in that garage. I also think about the debris that fell when we loosened rusty bolts from the car’s subframe.

There was a thrill in knowing that my friend had built, not bought, the car he drove. I knew he could take the car he built, a 240SX with an RB20DET, race and beat kids from my well-off Catholic school. I know my boy would come out on top. He had shown me his potential firsthand when I went down McMurray Road, perpendicular to the guardrail. I’ve written about him before, but he was a real positive influence on my life. Like a good Guru or Sensei, he taught me how cool Japan could be.

I have some memories of spinning out in my black KA24DE S14; funnily enough, the only damage I caused to the car was backing into my garage, but those are tales for another day.

Finding the Real Thing In Japan

I still remember the three times I found real hashirya in Japan. They weren’t rich, building cars for photos, or tourists. When I arrived, I was an intruder in a sacred space. Yet they took me in, allowed me to run with them, ride along in their cars, chat, and join them for convenience store runs as the sun was rising. Looking back, they are really special moments that allow me to see past the matrix.

There are some locations I know, but a memory I’ll never forget is leaning against my friend’s RS200 Altezza, watching street kids drift and talking about life.

Sometimes It’s Better to Not Burst a Bubble

I contained the majority of my contempt for Daikoku and what car culture has become and let Aldrin tell me his perspective. What I found was that his fresh view of the location softened my own. He happily explained small aspects of cars he enjoyed that were invisible to me at first. My other friend, Dave, particularly enjoys the spot. Perhaps part of my cynical lens comes from hardly being able to afford to keep a car running. Imagine the cost to modify one to my tastes and liking.

The one redeeming factor of Daikoku is that not everyone is an influencer, a clout chaser, or a POS. In the Cesspool, there are some cool people. The other week, I met a guy named Justin with an Altezza. Now here I am talking to Aldrin.

Despite it being the weekend, the rain kept many people from bringing their parking lot princesses out of their garages. Stil,l we got to enjoy some of the atmosphere. We also ran into tourists that took a cab to Daikoku. Despite being cool guys from Australia, this is a PSA. Don’t take cabs to Daikoku. You might get stuck there, climb the fence, and end up on NHK. The Japanese media and government hate car people enough, especially those who come from overseas.

Snowfall

I grabbed a coffee, like life, coffee always has a tinge of bitterness. Like the sweet moments in life the sugar, milk, and cinnamon took the edge out of the drink. What was cool was that it was a vending machine coffee which was brewed fresh. Hmm, reminds me of my friend Brendon in Cyberpunk 2077. On our way down to Yokosuka, Snow came falling. It was odd enough for snow to fall in this area. Having snow this late into the year was a sign of the end times. . . If the apocalypse happened, I wouldn’t mind as long as I died a quick, painless death.

We ended up stopping at Cousin’s friend’s place. He had friends all over the world. I thought about how alone and isolated I felt on a daily basis. Although we were out for a night of drinking, there was no time to wallow in sadness. My cousin’s friend was a half-Korean currently in the military. An easy way to describe her is to take all the stereotypes you know about quiet Asian women and think of the opposite. It was kind of refreshing after living in Japan for so long. She just told it how it was, which wasn’t always pleasant, but she always meant well.

Butcher’s Birthday

The whole reason my cousin came to Japan is to promote his business at a Car event. The logistics of running a car event and having people show up to it in a foreign country sounds like a nightmare. Butcher was one of the people who was able to pull it off. Meanwhile,I couldn’t get even one person to show up to my birthday. I’m still sad about that one, it threw me into a deep depression. Still no time to think about being sad when I’m drinking things and walking around Joe Biden roomba style, not knowing what to do. Social situations were never my specialty, but Aldrin was enjoying himself talking about cars with everyone.

One of the skills I’ve learned as a tour guide is when to sit down and shut up. It’s okay to just enjoy what’s happening. While I’m not Japanese, I enjoy their concept of shared silence. When I was dating a Japanese girl, sometimes we would go to the library and study together. As a Westerner you always want to poke, prod, or say something. From the Japanese mind, it may look like an insecure message of your existence. Like you’re telling the world. Look, hey I exist as if they can’t see you.

Bar 76

We ended the night in my cousin’s favorite watering hole, a place owned by an Israeli named Bar76. Liron had the perfect personality for a bartender. In character creation, he definitely maxed out his charisma because all sorts of personalities were drawn to his bar. That nigh,t an old friend named Dooby came by. What I’ve learned is that you don’t play drinking games with Dooby. . . Aldrin didn’t know that. I found myself at the end of the group next to a stranger. I didn’t expect to stay too long, but the man, who wasn’t even a part of our group, and I ended up having a really deep, thoughtful conversation.

It’s pretty funny because I remember scaring the old bartender at Bar 76 with my existential terror. Yet I found myself in the same bar having an intellectual conversation about the nature of consciousness, the universe, and the concept of god and identity. I got so caught up in the conversation that I had missed the last train. Also during that time, Aldrin drank. Within that time frame, Aldrin didn’t just drink. . . but he drank a lot. A little buzzed myself, I remember taking him downstairs, making sure he didn’t fall over, and having water spit in my face after we tried to make him drink it for his good.

I laughed hysterically after that happened. It was almost like a cartoon the way he spit out the water.

What a Day

It’s past 1:00 AM., I’m holding up someone built like a lineman, still laughing with my cousin about how life somehow brought us here. Somewhere between ghost-chasing strangers, drifting memories, and Daikoku parking lot debates, I’ve realized maybe the dream hasn’t completely died. Maybe I’m just in the process of building it. Perhaps you don’t always need to find it; sometimes, it finds you. Like the great conversation at the bar, sometimes it happens when you least expect it. In late-night drives, in conversations under overpasses, in the friends who still see magic in machines you’ve stopped noticing.

Just when we think we have Aldrin under control, he takes off running down the street. I glance over at my cousin.

Well, here we go again

P.S. We did get Aldrin home safe and sound; he passed out on the couch.

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