Mark Bossingham

My novel and Google

OK. I realize Google is taking over the world but have you seen Google Books? Amazing, I have no clue how it works but I typed in the title of my novel and it leaped right out at me. The depth of the info is pretty astonishing, eerie even.  And we are not exactly talking about a huge bestseller here. If its got me, let's face it, its got everyone.
    Anyway, hit this LINK  and see for yourself. I hadn't read it in a number of years--went through a few pages and it stands up much better than I expected. Remains a pretty gritty read so if you are easily offended, or if you have an unrealistic (and would prefer to hold on to it) view of Japan, stay away.

Bowling in Tokyo

OK, HERE we go with another of my non-political columns for the newspaper.

Up against the wall, bowling balls! Your days in the gutter are done

"Ball wall!" I shout, perform a one-armed fist-to-the-sky "guts pose," and
race back up the lane. The 4-year-old on the next lane gets it, gets me. He laughs. And then, with Dad's help, he shoves a ball down the nose of an elephant.

It isn't a real elephant. It's a wooden guide painted to look like a pachyderm. The ball eventually rolls into a triangle of pins at the other end of the lane. A few wobble and fall. Mom cheers; toddler-sister squeals.

I'd heard there was a bowling "boom." Some in their 60s had hit the pause button on their lives, punched rewind, and were rolling up to the lanes again.

   I wanted to see. I understood.

Memory lane: alley punks in white T-shirts, pointy-toed boots and pegged pants; a bottle-blonde waitress (rumored to be a divorcee), her Marlboro left burning on the bar, delivering beers to teams of heavy men; excited 11-year-olds eyeing a run in her stockings.

But I am at Leisureland Bowl in Tokyo's Odaiba--kids to the left of me, kids to the right. I search for the boomsters. No one fits the description. The alley seems designed for kids. Candy-colored shoes, balls--everything. I'm surprised the children don't eat the furniture.

The counter guy gives me a look when I indicate I want the "ball wall" set up on my lane. A teen girl runs over and wedges blocks of hard rubber into the gutters. With the wall in place, a gutter ball is impossible.

At first, the wall is a disappointment. I bowl a game. None of my balls would have been destined for the gutter anyway. My score is 123--better than expected after a three-year hiatus.

   I make a rule: For the next game, ALL balls must hit the wall.

I peer down the lane, pick out a small nick in the rubber in the right-hand wall and let 'er rip. I throw the ball harder than usual. Way too hard. I am nearly parallel to the floor when the ball slips from my fingers. It smacks the rubber wall with a crack. I slide headfirst down the lane. Kids howl with joy at the sight of me.

KA-RACK! My ball ricochets off the wall and smashes into the pins. Face down, I watch as the pins fall--no make that explode! Strike!

   (Insert aforementioned triumphant "guts pose" at this point in the narrative.)

I hesitate for a moment, waiting for large individuals to separate me from impressionable children and toss me out. When no one arrives, I charge down the lane like a wild animal--an elephant! No strike this time, but man, it feels good--all that mass, all that speed, all that destruction.

Again, I pick out a blemish in the wall. How odd. I stare; I blink. I recall the face of the salaryman who pushed me in the back on the train last night. Splat!

Much too quickly, the wild mayhem is over. Score? 127--four pins better than "normal" bowling. Highly recommended if you don't mind looking a wee bit foolish.(IHT/Asahi: May 19,2007)

Not our decision

TO SURRENDER may seem to be our choice. It is not. It is the enemy's.