Yakuza Papers: observations on video games and film

 “Dennis Quaid wasn’t even IN  Twister… .but he knows I don’t know that.” -Ray Smuckles When the Question is put to you, you will realize that it (a version of it) has been asked of every generation that has coexisted with film. This, the question’s persistence, is the  truth , the reveal-- both the specific text of the Question (which must change), and even the Answer (which will always be the same) are completely unimportant.  My generation has now been asked the Question: is Hollywood so out of ideas that another version of fucking  Twister (FUCKING  TWISTER !!!) is all They could come up with? The Answer is They are not, but, They decided to make another fucking  Twister  anyway. This has always been true. Making a new movie is always a bigger pain in the ass, and a bigger exposure to risk, than making the same fucking movie over and over again. To the Last Man  is a pre-code Western that raises questions about just how bad and inept it i...

 “I’m [not on drugs] and I want...to...take his place” -Jonathan Richman The word ‘Golem,’ incidentally, is the smoking gun that outs JRR Tolkien as a raving anti-semite. For most people, ‘Golem’ is the corrupted ring-junckie from  The Hobbit  and  Lord of the Rings;  however, close students of the Kabbalah or Dungeons and Dragons know that ‘ a  golem’ or ‘ the  golem’ is a kind of magical robot from Jewish mythology. The famous one was built by Rabbis in medieval Prague and is the subject of a kind of dumbed down Frankenstein/Pygmalion type story. The fact that Tolkien borrowed a word from Jewish mysticism for his embodiment of corruption and greed really should end the debate about who he was and what he was about. For anyone who wants to extend the debate by pointing out that Golem is redeemable: the offer of redemption means a lot more to the ‘in group’ offering it, than the ‘out group’ that ‘needs’ it. To Tolkien Jews are defined by materialism an...

 [October, 2023] 1) can’t count the refrences to the Yakuza games. Like there is now a genre of movies-that-are-sort-of-like-Ryu-ga-Gataku games. But "Bad City" stars the-guy-who-was-Kuze, yeah, we’re doing Yakuza things. 1a: is Kuze my absolute favorite character in the Yakuza games? (not counting Takeshi Kitano-- he’s clearly his own thing) He’s fuckn up there. Pocket Circuit Fighter, and Goro are the other ones who spring to mind...Etrsuko the Obatarian, weapon master w the hat, a handful of Omi guys like Nishtani and Watase.....fuckn Shineda….but he’s also his own thing, in his way.  2) They set up a situation where a two cops shooting a single unarmed ‘civilian’ seems like a damn reasonable thing to do. Interesting to happen in Japanese movie. In a culture essentially w out guns, you do a scene w an explicit justification for cops shooting an unarmed man. Like, you WANT BADLY for the cops shoot the unarmed man. Seems more like a thing you might see in an American mov...

Just goddamit this is NOT ROCKET SCINCE. Every fucking idiot should know this. But apparently not. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em: I: The earliest Western drama, going back to the Ancient Greeks, was defined by a binary between Tragedy and Comedy. But even by Shakespeare, who did write tragedy and comedy, you can see people growing skeptical of the distinction. He has pathos in the comedies, and people in the tragedies tell jokes. From what we understand of Shakespeare, the pressure to create works with more elements was  economic  and not  artistic : the guy’s who owned the Globe wanted to be able to sell seats to people who were worried that Hamlet would be too much of a ‘downer’ AND people who thought that the frivolity of Twelfth Night was beneath them. Serious Western drama persisted, was less concerned with a distinction between tragedy and comedy, and has not really had an effect on culture since maybe the mid nineteenth century. Obviously, people kept on writing plays, ...

 So, I’d been putting off the “Kasuga meets a White American Japan Nerd” substory for reasons that are gonna get more obvious. Bonus humiliation: I was going through the dialog so quickly I didn’t see if they mentioned anyone alongside Kurosawa, and that matters. If the American asshat shouts out Fukasaku it might break my heart a little. Anyway, the thing was cringy, I avoided completing it, then I hit a kinda ‘face your fears day’ and finished it. It was about what the American Japan Nerd has coming, but also RGG and the world can GET FUCKED. Just goddam everyone needs to work harder. During a rain storm, Kasuga is asked to choose between an umbrella and a stupid samurai hat-- I nailed it by choosing the hat. Problem: when you imagine a Japan Nerd are you thinking about a guy who is gonna check shit against his copy of Haga-fucking-kura? I got receipts, BITCH: There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quic...

 I keep getting Elvis songs stuck in my head and it is very hard to figure out how much of this is an intended part of the “Infinite Wealth” experience. I also keep being impressed with how much I end up liking Elvis, when I play the song that each chapter is named after. I feel like I am more aware of Elvis than a lot of people playing “Infinite Wealth” mostly because I imagine that 1) I am on the older end of the RGG fanbase and 2) I have a kind of half-assed knowledge/interest in the history of American music, particularly as related to race-relations, which is probably not true of everyone playing this game. A lot of people, including Japanese players, probably know MORE about it than I do, but I would guess that I am at least in the top half when it comes to knowledge/awareness of the history of rock n’ roll among RGG gamers. That’s just a guess. I wonder how many human beings have 1) played “Infinite Wealth” and 2) saw the King perform live? Around a hundred? That was my firs...