Posts By Dan Ryan
25 Days in Tokyo—5: Halloween
In late October, 2015, I was in Tokyo, Japan for 25 days. I shot many photographs, and this series presents the most interesting, compelling, or touching scene I saw each day I was there. Click here to see the previous entries in this series.
Halloween in Tokyo, 2015 was a gas. I had not been in the city for this holiday since 1987. Back then Halloween wasn’t a big deal in Japan, and you were lucky to be invited to a gaijin friend’s costume party or find an American horror movie from the ‘30s on Japanese TV. Anyway, in 2015 I bopped all over the city, from Nakano to Ueno to Shinjuku and back to Nakano. I was delighted to see many people dressed up for Halloween, and not surprised the Japanese had adopted it and turned it into a marketing revenue stream.
Here’s some of the sights I saw during my Tokyo Halloween…
▲A neighbor living next to the Nakano apartment building I stayed in. He’s not in Halloween costume, but I love his face.
▲Young men on the Yamanote Line platform in Ueno Station.
▲On the Yamanote Line near Ōtsuka. The fellow wearing the bloody white tie spoke excellent English.
▲Costume problems for the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man somewhere on the edge of Kabukichō at 11 p.m.
(Various locations, Tokyo, Halloween 2015)
25 Days in Tokyo—4: Tattoos & high-tops
In late October, 2015, I was in Tokyo, Japan for 25 days. I shot many photographs, and this series presents the most interesting, compelling, or touching scene I saw each day I was there. Click here to see the previous entries in this series.
It was about 11 p.m. on a Friday night. I was in my short-term apartment rental drinking beer and watching a movie on my laptop. I forget which movie. Suddenly outside my apartment door I heard bumping and banging sounds accompanied by a man’s loud voice speaking Japanese. I grabbed my camera, exited the apartment, and saw this punk rocker guy wobbling around the walkway outside. He was clearly rather drunk, but when he saw me eyeballing him he quieted down and insisted on showing me his leg tattoos. I was fine with that, as I was a bit lit up myself. Then we looked at each other with the unspoken mutual understanding that we were both intoxicated but meant each other no harm.
Then we smiled at each other and said ‘oyasumi nasai’ (‘good night’) almost in unison. Then he went into his apartment, and I went back into mine, and that was pretty much it for the night…
(Nakano 5-chome, Tokyo 2015)
Waldo’s beautiful sisters
It was a few days before Halloween in Tokyo, so I think these ladies were going to a costume party. But my Japanese being what it is, I didn’t have all the words required to properly ask them. It didn’t matter, they were happy to be photographed. Because it was Tokyo, they were beautiful, and that wouldn’t change whether they found Waldo or Wally or Wōrī later or not…
(Nakano 5-chome, Tokyo 2015)
25 Days in Tokyo—3: Freedom
In late October, 2015, I was in Tokyo, Japan for 25 days. I shot many photographs, and this series presents the most interesting, compelling, or touching scene I saw each day I was there. Click here to see the previous entries in this series.
The first three days I was in Tokyo in 2015, I didn’t wander around the city much. I was getting over jetlag, and a cold I brought with me from California. So I stuck to destinations within about 10 minutes walking distance from the apartment I was renting in Nakano-ku. Fortunately, that restriction encompassed a fantastic little bar called Freedom that I accidentally discovered near a park in September, 2013.
As the exterior shows, it’s a run-down little place. But Mama-san, on the left, and her customer, who was a regular I’d seen before in 2013, treated me with humor, warmth, and respect, despite the fact that, as usual, my Japanese was so bad the three of us really couldn’t talk to each other much…
(Nakano 5-chome, Tokyo 2015)
25 Days in Tokyo—2: Alley boys
In late October, 2015, I was in Tokyo, Japan for 25 days. I shot many photographs, and this series presents the most interesting, compelling, or touching scene I saw each day I was there. Click here to see the previous entries in this series.
The second night I was in Tokyo I went to a Ministop convenience store near the apartment I was renting in Nakano 5-chome to buy some beer. Nearby I saw these two men in a grubby alley behind an izakaya, probably taking a break from their jobs in that restaurant. Actually, I saw the guy on the left. I didn’t notice the other man until I saw his face floating in my photo when I analyzed it on my computer about half an hour later.
Tokyo is packed tight and always full of surprises…
(Nakano 5-chome, Tokyo 2015)
25 Days in Tokyo—1: Standing guard
In late October, 2015, I was in Tokyo, Japan for 25 days. I shot many photographs, and this series presents the most interesting, compelling, or touching scene I saw each day I was there…
Tokyo is always under construction. Something is always being built, rebuilt, renovated, upgraded, repaired, or maintained. So walking by, through, under, or over construction sites is pretty common. And these sites typically employ security guards, usually older men on pensions or limited incomes who need the money or want the work to keep busy. And I didn’t ask into which category this fellow placed himself, but it was clear he took the job very seriously…
(Near Life Nakano Ekimae, Tokyo 2015)
Dance class
His name is Joe and we were both in the same waiting room at Kaiser Permanente in South San Francisco. He caught my eye because he was so nicely-dressed, looking much classier than the anxious people one typically sees in dreary HMO waiting rooms. Joe makes a habit of dressing nicely all the time. He likes to look good because he’s a dance instructor in San Francisco. According to his card, he can teach you the Tango, the Cha-Cha, and the Boogie. I can give you his number if you’re interested…
(South San Francisco, California 2016. Also published on Scholars & Rogues.)
27 years
As of August 31st, 2016, I have been in California for 27 years. I moved here with my best friend Brian, who had accepted a job offer in San Francisco a few months after graduating from Lehigh University. Knowing that I didn’t like my job in Maryland just outside the D.C. Beltway, and that I was losing my free room and board because my parents were moving back to Dallas, Brian suggested I move to San Francisco with him.
I thought about it for five minutes, said “What the hell, I’m in”, and by the second week of August, 1989 we were heading west from the Jersey shore in a Ford Aerostar minivan loaded with clothing, minimal furniture, and Coors Extra Gold. We drove the southern route and saw a lot of weird shit in Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. This old scanned photograph from a campground near the Grand Canyon is just one example…
By now I have lived in California longer than any other place in my 52 years. If I could I would trade some of the shitty times during my 27 years here (like being a poor student in Santa Barbara in 1991) for an extra year or so in Singapore when I was a teenager and in Tokyo when I was in my twenties.
But I met my wife here, and I wouldn’t trade her for anything. And I finally found a rich creative life here, after several crummy careers that didn’t suit me or that I didn’t suit. Yep, I have my wife and her love, and my view of the world through a camera held by the man that California has helped me become. And barring a couple of chronic physical ailments and psychological quirks, I am often at peace with who I am and who I still want to be.
So for me it’s California. It’s good here.
(Picture taken at Flintstones Bedrock City, Williams, Arizona, August 1989)
A day of crazed mousery
Indy caught a mouse today, which as far as my wife and I can recall is not something he has ever done before. The upside to this is he’s over 16 years old and still spry enough, with the help of regular medications for his aging joints, to be the predator he was built to be. The downside is Indy didn’t kill the mouse outright.
So to keep him from eating it, I had to grab the poor mouse out of Indy’s mouth by its tail and throw it into my back yard while it was still barely alive. I really hated throwing away a little life like that. It will probably give me nightmares…
(Brisbane, California 2016)
Gravity bites
Snack time for an energetic dog in the parking lot at Brisbane’s grocery store…
(Brisbane, California 2016)