Saturday, February 17, 2007

Tokyo blues

Readers of a blog of a person reporting on the daily life are getting a totally deformed impression of what is in fact life really like.

This is partly the result of the subjectivity of the person reporting.
Every person tends to present oneself publicly in a more or less positive way, consciously or unconsciously.

It is also partly the result of the way of communication.
It is one way.
A monologue.
And limited to words and images.
This is a poor form of communication compared to meeting a person in reality when many more aspects play a role to understand and feel the other person.

This is therefore a serious warning to all the fervent and loyal readers of this blog and any other blog frequented: the persons writing the blogs are in reality very different from the impression one gets reading the silk words and seeing the soft images on the blog.

One likes to have heroes. Persons doing what one is not having the courage to do oneself. But the reality of a hero is very different than what’s imagined.

A band called The Kinks did a great song on this subject.
Here are the lyrics:
Everybody’s a dreamer and everybody’s a star,
And everybody’s in movies, it doesn’t matter who you are.


There are stars in every city,

In every house and on every street,

And if you walk down Hollywood Boulevard

Their names are written in concrete!


Don’t step on Greta Garbo as you walk down the boulevard,

She looks so weak and fragile that’s why she tried to be so hard

But they turned her into a princess

And they sat her on a throne,

But she turned her back on stardom,
Because she wanted to be alone.


You can see all the stars as you walk down Hollywood Boulevard,

Some that you recognise, some that you’ve hardly even heard of,

People who worked and suffered and struggled for fame,

Some who succeeded and some who suffered in vain.


Rudolph Valentino, looks very much alive,

And he looks up ladies dresses as they sadly pass him by.

Avoid stepping on Bela Lugosi
cos he’s liable to turn and bite,
But stand close by Bette Davis

Because her’s was such a lonely life.

If you covered him with garbage,

George Sanders would still have style,

And if you stamped on Mickey Rooney

He would still turn round and smile,

But please don’t tread on dearest Marilyn
cos she’s not very tough,
She should have been made of iron or steel,

But she was only made of flesh and blood.


You can see all the stars as you walk down Hollywood Boulevard,

Some that you recognise, some that you’ve hardly even heard of.

People who worked and suffered and struggled for fame,

Some who succeeded and some who suffered in vain.


Everybody’s a dreamer and everybody’s a star

And everybody’s in show biz, it doesn’t matter who you are.


And those who are successful,

Be always on your guard,

Success walks hand in hand with failure

Along Hollywood Boulevard.


I wish my life was a non-stop Hollywood movie show,

A fantasy world of celluloid villains and heroes,

Because celluloid heroes never feel any pain

And celluloid heroes never really die.


You can see all the stars as you walk along Hollywood Boulevard,

Some that you recognise, some that you’ve hardly even heard of,

People who worked and suffered and struggled for fame,

Some who succeeded and some who suffered in vain.

Oh celluloid heroes never feel any pain

Oh celluloid heroes never really die.


I wish my life was a non-stop Hollywood movie show,

A fantasy world of celluloid villains and heroes,

Because celluloid heroes never feel any pain

And celluloid heroes never really die.


This is a fabulous song of The Kinks with great lyrics.
Coming to mind when returning again to the hotel room in Tokyo, home for almost two weeks now.
With only 7 channels in Japanese language on TV and no Internet connection in the evening nor space to invite someone and no place to go but cheap restaurants and vulgar night clubs.
Taking the celluloid away and feeling pain and ready to die.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Invision the sun setting over the ocean, a warm breeze, a gentle smile, hugging a puppy, eating a ripe avocado......

Anonymous said...

First glance at the picture of the bed with the laptop I thought it was a picture of your camper.. You must feel at home in that little room.

Did you ever post "what the hell you are you doing in Japan?"

Stay safe.