I have been having correspondence with another friend who I have never met, yet correspond with, just like Charles Bukowski and Gary North. My friend's name is Jp (I'm not sure he would want me to write his full name down. He seems a very humble person). Jp seems to be very well known in Hollywood. He is an artist, creator and producer.
That's about all I know about him. Seems like a guy who enjoys his privacy and has just a few friends but those are strong relationships.
Jp has been around Hollywood for a very long time. He has seen what went on there in the sixties and knows Sunset Strip and the entertainment area well. It also seems that everyone in the so-called "Hollywood In-Crowd" knows Jp but I also gather he is not a part of that "in-crowd." (People like me think that is a good thing). Jp has been inspiring me, unbeknownst to him, to move into a more creative realm of writing. I think I am going to do that.
I've decided that I was going to start writing more about the many true and bizarre things that have happened to me in my life. I have been arrested a few times, should be dead (more than once); the lead singer of a one-hit wonder rock band, a drug addict, a witness to an exorcism; I won $100,000 at the lottery in '81 or was it '82? I've been divorced twice (not so special); I fought and defeated a rare and extremely deadly childhood cancer, met and worked with many famous people, been on TV; and I have the bragging rights of being the only DeeJay in Japan who has been fired from every FM radio station in Tokyo at least once (Bragging? That's right. If you knew how crappy these Tokyo FM stations are, then you'd agree) ....
All in all, I've lived a charmed life. I want to write it down while I can.
My 54th birthday party
There's much material to cover, so first, I'll want to write about my true adventures in drug abuse and drug rehabilitation. This, inspired by Jp, but also inspired by Charles Bukowski of whom Jp is also a fan of. I will be posting some of these stories starting today or tomorrow (I am 1/2 way through the first one).
Before I do, though, I think I need to explain another reason why I do this. Of course, I'd like to be a famous writer someday too. But, if I get so lucky to be so, I also know that it would most certainly happen after my death, if at all. That's why I need to post these things. This blog is sort of my notes.
These stories will all be true stories to the best of my recollection and follow my writing style like the following two examples... But they will be even more raw and scary (I hope). I hope that I have the guts to write it down as it was and not to hide facts and sugar coat:
My Life is Like a "B" Horror Movie
"All I wanted was one little drink, yet I couldn't have it." I said as I lay down on the sofa. The friend snorted the cocaine and rubbed his nose. Through his gasps he looked at me and said,
"Mike! This is a dry county in a Christian country in the Land of the Free. Why is it you have a problem with that? Why do you hate the baby Jesus!?" He laughed sarcastically at the absurdity of it all and handed the straw towards me. I refused. After a 24 hour flight, snorting cocaine was the last thing I needed.
On the left of me, here's a guy breaking the law by smoking marijuana. On the right of me, a guy breaking the law doing cocaine. Me, in the middle, I cannot even buy a glass of wine or a beer just because it is a Sunday? What is this? Enforced Christianity? Didn't Jesus drink wine?
John Belushi, Japan and Me - Or How the Movie Animal House Changed my Life
If you want to be special and do something really different, then you can't do what everyone else is doing. You have to go for the "gusto!" Watching John Belushi taught me to do that... Sometimes, it got me in big trouble with bosses, but the results have always been good. Like Francis Ford Coppola once said, "The things you get fired for at 20-years-old, are the things you are celebrated for at 50-years-old." I want to be celebrated. Who doesn't? Life is short.
Anyway, this inspiration to write these things down all-of-a-sudden. How did it come about? Well, as I wrote yesterday, first I decided to give up forever working with some clowns I know. Then Jp inspired me to watch some Bukowski videos. They caused me to remember how I felt when I was 30. Then Jp wrote about his work and frustrations.
So I decided that I am going to write these things down in the ext few days and here was my letter to JP explaining my motivations:
"Jp, I need to learn more from you. You have so much to share. Now, today, I am inspired by you and Bukowski to finally write down my experiences in drug rehabilitation in Japan. And I am doing that right now (taking a break). My thinking is that my blog writings are my notes (as well as a pocket notebook that I always carry). This year, I may get lucky and get a good sum of money from a business venture that I made a few years ago. I pray so. That allows me to have more freedom. Either way, I know that people create their own reality through self fulfilled prophesy so I am expecting the best and want to live my life.
I want to write my experiences as I remembered they happened. I think it might make a good (maybe funny) collection of stories or even be good for a script (whether that script becomes movie or not is besides the point). Several people who know me well have read articles and posts when I admitted that I went drug rehab, divorced twice, was arrested a few times, etc. etc.
They tell me, "Mike! Don't write that. People won't want to work with you!"
I think, "Yep. Probably true. But so what? It is what it is. That was a long time ago and, in today's society, things (and people) are so f*cked up anyway. If they can't handle someone who is honest about their past, then I don't want to work with them anyway."
There are so many people full of sh*t who are living plastic lives with plastic faces. Like that Roxy Music song, "In every dream home a heartache." That's the way it is. Our society is so sick because in every dream home there is a heartache; kid's a drug addict, father an alcoholic and having an affair, mom's addicted to pain killers, an unloved person relying on what a doll represents for love... On and on... Yet people want to keep the facade that they are "normal healthy and happy individuals." They don't want to admit their human failings. They want to live a life that is merely a show...
I don't despise those kinds of people. They need to be pitied. If those kinds of people don't want to work with people like me who want to reach higher ground by telling the truth and admitting their faults, then why would I want to work with them?
Who is the really sick person in this picture?
I want to be happy. I want to be closer to God, Buddha, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, the big electrode, nature, peace, earth, the Sun, Bob, Tony, whatever-you-want-to-call-it. I want to reach the higher ground. I don't have any problem admitting my past.
Maybe I am wrong, but the best way to be happy and to reach that higher ground is to admit one's own problems and then, by doing so, you'll be able to be more accepting, understanding and less judgmental of other people's problems.
And, so, with that, my next posting will be about going into drug rehabilitation in Japan. Japan is well known for a no nonsense policy on drugs. Japan will put you in prison even if they find a tiny bit of marijuana on your possession. It is world famous and a well known fact that Japan doesn't mess around with drug abusers.
Now, I can tell the story to you as it happened to me. Sounds scary? Well, it was, but that was a long time ago. Today? Call me crazy but I have very fond memories of drug rehab in Japan... It was much like my days in a university dorm.
The funny part about drug rehab in Japan is that they put the former drug abusers into the same hospitals as people who have been interned for mental disorders such as insanity or schizophrenia, so, when you are there, you never know why the person next to you is in the hospital. They could look completely normal but be unable to hold coherent conversations. On the other hand, they could look like a crazy mad scientist with their hair sticking out all directions and unshaven, seemingly barking mad crazy but be quite the well mannered gentleman... That sort of gentleman, that would be a normal person; a former drug addict, like me. I always looked like hell but had good manners and respect for people.
Of course I had respect for them, they scared the living daylights outta me. I didn't want them to kill me in my sleep.
The other tougher part about drug rehab is that you don't know when you'll ever be released until a week or a few days before release.
You'd look like this too is you only were allowed showers and shaves twice a week.
Compared to Matsuzawa Hospital, the hospital I stayed in, the movie hospital in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was pretty realistic in many ways. The difference between that hospital and mine? Not much. Everyone wanted desperately to get out of that place yet couldn't; and both hospitals had people dancing in the hallways. At least the hospital McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) was in had background music playing. My hospital had none... Yet they still danced.
I also kept thinking of ways to escape and couldn't get that theme song from the movie "The Great Escape" out of my head.
The guys in the halls are still there dancing today, I'm sure. I am glad I am out and can talk about it. It is funny in parts and sad in others. I hope you will enjoy it. And I hope I don't come off as a pompous ass.
ROXY MUSIC - IN EVERY DREAM HOME A HEARTACHE
Thanks to Jp
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