TIME FOR “PHILOSOPHIZING WITH ‘PHIL’”

Well, it’s nearly the end of November, about three months since that fateful day when I learned I wouldn’t be going to Rutgers. Looking back on that ¼ year that went by, I am more certain than ever that it was a blessing in disguise. I’ve spent quite a few afternoons at the public library the last few months, and I’ve learned that the life of a librarian is really quite bad. The pay barely consists of a living wage. Several hours of the day are spent dealing with unruly children, or homeless people, or perverts, or crazies. Or sometimes all four at once. While the librarians I spoke to claimed that their careers greatly satisfied them, the dead look in their eyes, and their barely-concealed desperation when consulting a member of the opposite gender, convinced me otherwise. Certainly, this kind of career black hole wasn’t worth $40,000 in loan monies over the next two years. Librarianism could definitely help me develop my killer rage to its utmost potential, but $40,000 over two years is still rather steep.

Still, I can’t help looking back on the failed Rutgers experiment as part of a larger trend, which I call “Failure, thy name is Phil.” Let’s look back on the last year-and-a-half since my graduation, at some of the ambitions which didn’t work out.

(1) Teaching English in South Korea. (The problem: Not white enough.)

(2) Finding a Full-Time Job. (Bad economy, or perhaps I just lack marketable skills.)

(3) Graduate School at Rutgers. (Alright, I deserved that one. Financial aid fraud is, in all likelihood, a crime.)

(4) Landing an internship which would improve my marketability. (Did I mention Inc. Magazine, which basically gave me the internship, jerked me around for weeks over the start date, then took the internship back at the eleventh hour? Their parent company is G & J, the publishing house that tried to steal Rosie O’Donnell’s magazine out from under her. Ah, what do you expect from Germans? “We’re G & J. Exterminating your souls, if not your bodies.”)

But it wasn’t all that bad, I suppose. There were things I managed to accomplish. For example… … …Hey, I got to work in the Art Department of a feature film! Also, I got to do a lot of dead-end jobs. I’ve got a brand-spanking new dead end job coming up this Monday! Museum of Modern Art! I think it’s data entry, but my temp coordinator called it “Database Proofreading.” Riiiiiiiight. It’s only one month, with absolutely no chance of extension. Wheeeee! And the hours are terrible! This just keeps getting better! And of course, nothing I do there will be marketable to my next employer! Zowee!

Why’d I agree to this shit job? I’ve got the next two weeks off from the movie shoot, so I figure I’ll just work two weeks at MoMA, take their money and quit. That’s if this doesn’t turn out to be data entry from Day One. If that happens, I’m going to take this Bowie knife of mine and kill somebody. Pretty sneaky, huh?

Oh wait! I also got to read lots of books the past three months! I finished Tom Robbins’ Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (Ha ha, ho ho, and hee hee.) I re-read Hal Johnson’s classic slab of Americana, Scaevola. Also, I consumed most of Peter Drucker’s Managing the Future, as well as Spalding Gray’s Swimming to Cambodia. I also read Robert Whiting’s Tokyo Underworld (Thanks to Adan for the author name.) Which reminds me, I’m supposed to write about the famous sumo wrestler Rikidozan.

OH RIKI, YOU’RE SO FINE.

Rikidozan was Japan’s most famous celebrity up until his death. He had been part of the Japanese Olympic sumo team, but Japan didn’t participate in the 1940 (?) games. (Remind me to check the exact dates.) So throughout the early 1940’s, Rikidozan was more or less another unemployed and overweight guy in Japan. Then Japan lost the War in the Pacific, and Americans descended on the small island like G.I.’s to a brothel, which is what Japan more or less turned into overnight.

America, being the harbinger of freedom that it is, immediately began forcing its values onto Japan. The Japanese psyche, reeling from defeat in the Pacific, was as submissive as a madam in a brothel, which again, is what Japan pretty much became overnight. “How could we have lost to these boorish gaijin?” the Japanese repeatedly asked themselves. Everywhere they looked, they saw their own culture being hedged out by new Western influences, and the self-esteem of the nation took a nosedive. For a while, it looked like there would be no relief. Then came that wonderful drug of drugs: Television.

Sumo wrestling was televised, but ratings were down and many feared that sumo would soon be extinct, like the rest of Japan’s culture. On the other hand, American professional, i.e., “fake” wrestling, was extremely popular. Some genius minister of television or something decided to hold an exhibition match between American wrestling superstars (Actually Z-grade wrestlers from the States who were desperate for work.) and Japanese sumo. This historic match was televised, and the Japanese who tuned in were initially devoid of hope. After all, the Americans looked like giants compared to their sumo counterparts. “Just like the Pacific,” many a Japanese thought to him or herself. “They will defeat us again.”

Then an amazing thing happened. The ringmaster rang the bell to begin the match, and the sumo wrestlers began wailing on the Americans. The American wrestlers probably hadn’t been expecting to be punched, kicked, and chopped at, but that is what they got. The previously-marginalized sumo walloped the Americans into submission, and across Japan, people went wild. It’s like a switch was flicked on, and a nation that had been sleepwalking through the past decade of postwar history suddenly awakened. The Japanese government, realizing the power of televised sumo wrestling matches—ones where the Japanese were victorious, that is—quickly scheduled more. So began Japan’s love affair with sumo wrestling programs, where the ugly Americans, mostly retired G.I.’s who were past their prime, pulled every dirty trick behind the referee’s back, only to be defeated by the pure and heroic Japanese at program’s end.

T.V. sales skyrocketed, and thousands of T.V.-less crammed together in front of 13-inch black and whites in storefront windows. The most popular wrestling program was the Mitsubishi Faitoman Awa (Mitsubishi Fightman Hour—I’m serious, that’s how they spelled it.) and one of its biggest stars was Rikidozan.

While Rikidozan made a name for himself by beating up Americans on scripted television programs, he was still considered one of the world’s greatest sumo, who probably would have gotten a medal of some kind had Japan participated in the Olympic games. Apparently, he must have been a truly charismatic sort as well, for legend has it he was a truck driver who got onto T.V. via an open call. At any rate, the nation loved him, and Rikidozan eventually appeared in movies, commercials, opened his own restaurants, and even found time to be a major leader in the Japanese mafia. He was also as unstable as Jake LaMotta standing on the San Andreas fault, snorting too much cocaine, sleeping with too many women, and picking fights all over town. But he was a tough guy. His death came at the hands of a rival gang member, who inadvertently brushed up against Riki in a restaurant. Riki, who was reportedly several-times drunk already, grabbed the guy and began beating his head in. The gang member stabbed Riki in self-defense.

What’s amazing is that Riki didn’t die from the knife wound. Instead, he walked over to the restaurant bar, got up on stage, and reportedly began singing “Mack the Knife.” The blade was still sticking out of him. The restaurant owner had to beg Riki to go to the hospital. While at the hospital, a doctor gave him an anesthesia he was allergic to, and he died.

But tell me, Scully, was his death a fluke, or part of a larger conspiracy? See, here’s the most amazing thing about Rikidozan: He wasn’t Japanese. Riki’s parents were North Korean, and Riki emigrated to Japan to find work. He didn’t dare reveal his heritage after Japan invaded South Korea, and after the war, his managers warned him that revealing it could cost him millions. And so, Riki’s real heritage remained a secret. Or did it?

Biographers who wrote about Rikidozan after his death claim that he always planned to return to his native North Korea. In fact, the second name Riki chose for himself, when written out in script, closely resembled a Korean word. Korean journalists noticed this; in time, they discovered the truth about him. Then came that fateful visit to North Korea. When Riki and his entourage arrived, they were greeting by cheering crowds, who all held up signs that read “Welcome home” in Korean. The Korean people definitely knew that Japan’s #1 celebrity was actually one of them. The Japanese government, of course, made sure the press didn’t mention the “Welcome home” signs. At the same time, they strongly suspected that Riki was entertaining thoughts of returning to his homeland.

What a disaster that would have been for the Japanese psyche! Their national hero moving to another country, and one that was considered an enemy! For Americans, it would be like Johnny Depp moving to France, only not a good thing. So conspiracy theorists hypothesize that both the knifing, and the death by “complications” at the hospital, were all planned out by the Japanese government. What is the truth? Perhaps we will never know.

Strangely enough, however, the truth did eventually come, and it did not cause a disaster. The Japanese, an amazingly versatile people, have managed to deny to themselves all evidence of their national hero’s not being Japanese. Currently, there are two shrines to Rikidozan, one in Japan, and one in North Korea. He was embraced by two countries as a national hero, which is pretty neat. The following is even neater: Tokyo Underworld was published in the mid-nineties. However, it states that, to this day, there are two different “official histories” for Rikidozan. The North Korean history is Riki’s actual history: He was born in the NK, emigrated to Japan before the war, and became a superstar. The Japanese history, meanwhile, claims that Rikidozan was born to a well-known Japanese sumo master, but was kidnapped by North Koreans and raised in another land. Riki eventually returned to Japan to become a sumo champion, and was adopted by a sumo master, who turned out to be… Riki’s real father!

Rikidozan was the name of Riki’s sumo master, and this master did, in fact, adopt Riki. But come on! Kidnapped? Magically reunited with his original father? It’s like a Shakespearean comedy! But to this day, or at least up to the time Tokyo Underworld was published, this was Rikidozan’s official Japanese history. The Japanese never question it. Rikidozan, a North Korean? Ridiculous. Kidnapped and magically reunited with his family? Well yeah, that sounds likely.