By Josh Fraser
"I love the smell of gokin in the morning"
So we pass the doors into the point of no return...the Heaven/Hell duality
of the place only dreamt of in the tiny printed pages of Hobby Japan....Forrest
Gang.
Matt and I, both middle aged men of gokin, walked like little kids among
the gleaming shelves of candy colored majesty. Yes I have been here before,
though today seemed more remarkable than past times. Perhaps it was the
notion that I actually had some yen in my pocket this time? And yes the
tins lining the back wall were calling me from their glass coffin....wispering..."take
me home, you know you want to"...and i like the vulnerable boy I
was, fell under their spell.
My pockets would soon be bare.
I also was smart enough to remember to bring my Sony Cybershot. I had
4.0 megapixels and a 128 meg chip at my giddy disposal. Now the question
was, would they let me take some pictures?
Fortunately for me the minister of info, Matt Alt, was by my side. He
was well aquainted with the owner, who seemed more than eager to let me
shoot away. Ah, the benefits of Alt's dynamic use of the languge. Of course
I figured the 45000 yen I just dropped probably helped my case as well.
Following my fifteen minute photo documentation, I felt the urge to light
up. I had quit smoking a year ago, but something about this concentration
of the highest caliber gokin, tin, vinyl and jumbos just got me going
like a bus load of Catholic school girls.
-J10
