Potential Tokyo Underworld movie – Nick Zappetti Edited Interview Sample E

TOKYO UNDERWORLD ZAPPETTI INTERVIEW TAPE SAMPLING E (25, 877 words, 44 pps)

The below is a copy of the content of an original rich text file shared by Bob with movie producers holding the rights for a Tokyo Underworld movie.

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POST OLYMPIC TOKYO

(FIRST RESTAURANT MOVED)

(MAFIA BOSS OF TOKYO)(KING OF ROPPONGI)

(ALPHA 66/FBI/PIZZA & PIECES)

(OTHER CRIMES & MISDEMEANORS)

(SEX STORIES/CAROUSING)

(POST DIVORCE “2, FAMILY RELATIONS)

(REISCHAUER) (J. CITIZENSHIP)

(HOKKAIDO RANCH)

(MISS HOKKAIDO)

(HOKKAIDO LAND)

(WIVES: MISS HOKKAIDO & YAE)

(YAE)

(MARRIAGE & DIVORCE RECORD)(YAE)

(YAE)

POST OLYMPIC TOKYO

Q: OK. After the Olympics. How Japan changed.

A: Well, I remember the money they made. They made a tremendous amount of money. They made international good will on television.. The bullet train. All that great architecture around the city. (shots of Kenzo Tange’s National Yoyogi Sports Center with curved rooflines of tensile stee). They found out who they were. They were very stubborn. They were son of a bitches before the Olympics. You couldn ‘t bring a car into Japan. You could ‘t do nothing. But after the Olympics, they got more internationalized because of the money that came in. You know, like you ask that question about tv. You know how much money they paid for American League baseball. So you gotta remember, that time was almost in the same category. How much money did they pay for the Olympics. How much money did the Japanese make.

Q: You said you couldn ‘t bring an America car in before the Olympics, but after you could?

A: Life changed. I don’t even think you could do it then.

Q: It still cost twice as much. Oh yeah. I remember the Japanese would not bring in a car because they said it would destroy their industry. They didn’t even have an industry. I told you about the American military was teaching the Japanese to do assembly line production. And Toyota used to said all their engineers to work on the assembly line and so they learned what the assembly line was. We/they were what, repairing trucks and jeeps in the Korean War. And they took all that technology free.

(They learned how to make superior cars, tv sets, transistor radios.

Then, of course, the Japanese are good at making a better banana than you can. They improve on everything.

Q: OK, so they got cocky or what?

A: They started to get arrogant. Flex their muscles. Now they find out what people buy. And they make it. The foreigners came to Japan. And they met man people. They made many connections. And they didn’t have nothing to offer. So I imagine if you look at the history of Japan after the Olympics, they really started making money. Properties changed. But I’d say property was going up before the Olympics.

Q: And you sold your land to the government so they could build that highway there. And you said you paid people to sit in your restaurant all day.

A: All day. I used to go to the nightclubs and give these girls tickets to come to my restaurant. And they would come and they would sit there and I remember the man came in one day from the highway commission and he was sitting in my restaurant. And he was sitting at a table. Then he had to sit at the bar. Then he had to go outside and wait because there was no more space.

And it was all a gimmick. I gave everybody 5,000. Come in my restaurant. Spend it. I did good I think.

I got two million yen from the government just because my sidewalk went down about 3 inches. Cuz they built the subway and they fucked the streets up. That was before 1964.

Cuz they built the Roppongi subway and the sidewalk in front of my restaurant sunk. Of course, it breaks. They gave me 2 million yen for the inconvenience. I only paid 3 million for the whole property. They gave me 2 because the sidewalk broke.

But, of course, you got to manipulate and maneuver those people.

And I had good manipulators. Good maneuverers.

Q: Sunk 2 inches?

A: Sunk 2 inches. Before the door was equal to the sidewalk. All of a sudden, it wasn’t equal, no more.

Q: So when was that, the subway?

A: It must have been 1962. It was before 64. Because 64, the highway went right through my restaurant.

Q: So you had to move the restaurant back when the hiway was built?

A: No, I moved over to the Gazembo-cho.That property was 170 tsubo. Cost me 47 million yen. The property cost 47 million. And I got 52 million yen in cash….Came to about 250 a tsubo, something like that.

Q: So paid these girls to come. You paid them 5,000 yen, told them to come in and sit down?

A: Sit down and eat and drink and take your time.

Q: How long did you do this? How many days?

A: Oh, about a week or ten days. I didn’t care. It was a lot of fun. You get a lot of sex of it it too. But anyway…Plenty of broads in those days. Good looking. They were nice looking girls. They were the cream of the crop.

Q: Week to ten days….Because he was trying to assess how much business you’d lose, right?

A: Eigyo-ken (business right). They wouldn’t give me only 4 times bigger property. I wanted more. 100% of the money for property. They wouldn’t give it to me.

Q: How much did they wind up giving you?

A: 97 million yen….That was a lot of money in 1964. A lot of fucking money. Nobody thought in terms of ichi-oku yen (100,000,000 yen), let me tell you. Nobody even thought that way, you know, they were…ten million yen was so much fucking money nobody even thought about it….They were down in the “nan-byaku-mon” (the millions).

Q: Now ten million yen seems like a summer vacation or something.

A: Well, you can buy three-quarters of a Benz, or a half a Benz.

Q: OK. Olympics changing things. Anything else?

A: Well, everything change after the Olympics. Like I said, the economic system in Japan started changing. They were getting stronger. That’s why everybody wants an Olympic, because it brings a lot of people in, they all got ideas. You’re a political science graduate. You should know.

Q: I want the words from you.

A: Well, I don’t know the words. I just know that they got on a higher plane. And right now, they’re so fucking high, you got to shoot a rocket up in the air to get them. But they were hard workers. There’s no question about it. The Japanese work very hard. They don’t have no problem because they all Japanese. They don’t allow foreigners to get involved. They don’t allow the boss to say like in the States, “Well, you’re nice to that guy because he’s a Jew like you. Or you’re nice to that guy because he’s black like you.” Over here, it’s one people. All Japanese. Nobody else qualifies. So they don’t feel bad by working, because everybody is from the same fucking mold. And everybody thinks the same. They all go to the same school. They all have the same way of thinking. And to me, they’re all fucking stupid, but you like that American commentator the other day on tv, what he said. He said, you know the Japanese, this girl, that 11 o’clock girl on the BS…she speaks beautiful English, very smart too, by the way…And she asked the guy, don’t you think we should get the islands back (inre the Northern Territories Russians occupy), he said, “Well when you go to war, you should expect to lose property.”

He didn’t want to say it, but she pushed him and pushed him and he finally said it. So now I asked, like yesterday, my nephew, he’s here, he’s a graduate of Fresno and he’s a big fucking computer salesman, and whatnot, his wife makes a quarter of a million dollars with that Fuji Xerox, and now they’re going to give her the international marketing. Can you imagine that? She’s gonna go way up.

And I asked him, I says, “What did we gain from the Spanish-American War?” And he couldn’t answer it. Fucking college graduate.

I said, “We got the Philippines from Spain.”

Then I says, “Well what’d we do with it? We gave it back to the Filipinos. We didn’t give it back to the fucking Spaniards.”

“So the Russians took the islands in the north. Why should they give it back to the Japanese?”

But then again, I guess if you go through history, a lot of countries…to me, that’s how the Japanese got those islands. They got them through the 1905 war with the Russians. But that’s the Manchester Treaty. I don’t know if you can find that book and you can just read the Manchester Treaty, it was done in Manchester, by the Americans. America saved Japan’s ass, that time. They attacked the Russians in 1904, and then the Russians took a fucking beating and then they started coming back and the Japanese said Banzai, let’s have a peace treaty. And the Americans manipulated the peace treaty and they got Korea. See? Then they only lost Korea because of the fucking World War II. But they don’t want to say that they had Korea because of the war with the Russians.

Q: I thought it went back to 1850, that thing with the islands.

A: It goes all the way back.

Q: OK. After the Olympics. How Japan changed.

A: Well, I remember the money they made. They made a tremendous amount of money. They made international good will. They found out who they were. They were very stubborn. They were son of a bitches before the Olympics. You couldn ‘t bring a car into Japan. You could ‘t do nothing. But after the Olympics, they got more internationalized because of the money that came in. You know, like you ask that question about tv. You know how much money they paid for American League baseball. So you gotta remember, that time was almost in the same category. How much money did they pay for the Olympics. How much money did the Japanese make.

Q: You said you couldn ‘t bring an America car in before the Olympics, but after you could?

A: Life changed. I don’t even think you could do it then.

Then, of course, the Japanese are good at making a better banana than you can. They improve on everything.

Q: OK, so they got cocky or what?

A: They started to get arrogant. Flex their muscles. Now they find out what people buy. The foreigners came to Japan. And they met man people. They made many connections. And they didn’t have nothing to offer. So I imagine if you look at the history of Japan after the Olympics, they really started making money. Properties changed. But I’d say property was going up before the Olympics.

Q: And you sold your land to the government so they could build that highway there. And you said you paid people to sit in your restaurant all day.

And it was all a gimmick. I gave everybody 5,000. Come in my restaurant. Spend it. I did good I think.

I got two million yen from the government just because my sidewalk went down about 3 inches. Cuz they built the subway and they fucked the streets up. That was before 1964.

But, of course, you got to manipulate and maneuver those people.

And I had good manipulators. Good maneuverers.

Q: Sunk 2 inches?

A: Sunk 2 inches. Before the door was equal to the sidewalk. All of a sudden, it wasn’t equal, no more.

Q: So when was that, the subway?

A: It must have been 1962. It was before 64. Because 64, the highway went right through my restaurant.

Q: So you had to move the restaurant back when the hiway was built?

Q: So paid these girls to come. You paid them 5,000 yen, told them to come in and sit down?

A: Sit down and eat and drink and take your time.

Q: How long did you do this? How many days?

Q: Week to ten days….Because he was trying to assess how much business you’d lose, right?

A: Eigyo-ken (business right). They wouldn’t give me only 4 times bigger property. I wanted more. 100% of the money for property. They wouldn’t give it to me.

Q: How much did they wind up giving you?

Q: Now ten million yen seems like a summer vacation or something.

A: Well, you can buy three-quarters of a Benz, or a half a Benz.

Q: OK. Olympics changing things. Anything else?

Q: I want the words from you.

And I asked him, I says, “What did we gain from the Spanish-American War?” And he couldn’t answer it. Fucking college graduate.

I said, “We got the Philippines from Spain.”

Then I says, “Well what’d we do with it? We gave it back to the Filipinos. We didn’t give it back to the fucking Spaniards.”

“So the Russians took the islands in the north. Why should they give it back to the Japanese?”

Q: I thought it went back to 1850, that thing with the islands.

A: It goes all the way back.

Q: OK. After the Olympics. How Japan changed.

Q: You said you couldn ‘t bring an America car in before the Olympics, but after you could?

A: Life changed. I don’t even think you could do it then.

Then, of course, the Japanese are good at making a better banana than you can. They improve on everything.

Q: OK, so they got cocky or what?

Q: And you sold your land to the government so they could build that highway there. And you said you paid people to sit in your restaurant all day.

(FIRST RESTAURANT MOVED)

And it was all a gimmick. I gave everybody 5,000. Come in my restaurant. Spend it. I did good I think.

I got two million yen from the government just because my sidewalk went down about 3 inches. Cuz they built the subway and they fucked the streets up. That was before 1964.

But, of course, you got to manipulate and maneuver those people.

And I had good manipulators. Good maneuverers.

Q: Sunk 2 inches?

A: Sunk 2 inches. Before the door was equal to the sidewalk. All of a sudden, it wasn’t equal, no more.

Q: So when was that, the subway?

A: It must have been 1962. It was before 64. Because 64, the highway went right through my restaurant.

Q: So you had to move the restaurant back when the hiway was built?

Q: So paid these girls to come. You paid them 5,000 yen, told them to come in and sit down?

A: Sit down and eat and drink and take your time.

Q: How long did you do this? How many days?

Q: Week to ten days….Because he was trying to assess how much business you’d lose, right?

A: Eigyo-ken (business right). They wouldn’t give me only 4 times bigger property. I wanted more. 100% of the money for property. They wouldn’t give it to me.

Q: How much did they wind up giving you?

Q: Now ten million yen seems like a summer vacation or something.

A: Well, you can buy three-quarters of a Benz, or a half a Benz.

Q: OK. Olympics changing things. Anything else?

Q: I want the words from you.

And I asked him, I says, “What did we gain from the Spanish-American War?” And he couldn’t answer it. Fucking college graduate.

I said, “We got the Philippines from Spain.”

Then I says, “Well what’d we do with it? We gave it back to the Filipinos. We didn’t give it back to the fucking Spaniards.”

“So the Russians took the islands in the north. Why should they give it back to the Japanese?”

Q: I thought it went back to 1850, that thing with the islands.

A: It goes all the way back.

(MAFIA BOSS OF TOKYO)(KING OF ROPPONGI)

(ALPHA 66/FBI/PIZZA & PIECES)

(OTHER CRIMES & MISDEMEANORS)

A: You want to open up a pachinko place, you got to pay them off. And I remember the figure used to be 30 million yen to open up a pachinko place. But now, today’s, inflated prices, it probably went way up.

Q: How much would you say?

A: 100 million….get this guy from Tosei-kai, he’ll say “We don’t do that.” Of course, they’re gonna say that they don’t do that. …

Pachinko makers are all Koreans you know.

Q: I asked you before about gunrunning, too. You said you never got into that? You never got into selling guns. I know somebody who said he saw one…he was in your apartment many many years ago back in the 50’s, you had a crate of shotguns, a box of shotguns…

A: Don’t believe that shit. When I lived over here, I bought a .22.rifle that was a pump gun from a colonel at the Stars and Stripes. I forgot who he was. And that was November Thanksgiving time. And I went down to get it registered. And my chauffeur was Joe Imamori. My chauffer. He was getting the paperwork done.

Q: What year was that?

A: Before 1960. It’s the papers, you can probably find it. I remember Thanksgiving. I remember my chauffeur was down at the customs office which was someplace where the Dai-Ichi Hotel is. Over there somewhere. And they told him to take the gun home because it’s Thanksgiving. He took the gun home to my house. And sure enough, the next day, I got raided by the fucking police. And there’s the gun sittin’ on the piano, with the fucking documents to make it legal entry into Japan, and, of course, they took the documents & threw it away, this is illegal possession of a rifle. And I think that that made the newspaper and a picture and everything else. So that would be Thanksgiving …close to 1958. 59. ……22 rifle. Pump gun. A copy of the 30-30. And I bought it from the guy who was running the Stars and Stripes, or FEN. I think he was the guy who was running FEN. The colonel in charge of FEN.

Q: And that was legal because it was considered a hunting rifle?

A: It was for my ranch in Hokkaido. So, it was not …it was legally gone through customs clearance. And the law is that I think you can only use 7 shells in it. Of course, eventually I bought another one. Still can’t find what fucking happened to it. That & my 30-30 disappeared. Some day somebody will get killed and they’ll say that’s Nicola’s gun.

Q: You had a 30-30?

A: I had a 30-30 pump gun, that I brought in from the States. I had no trouble with that one. You know the cowboy gun, the Winchester? And I had a pump gun, a 22 was the same way.

Q: But that incident was in the newspapers? You were arrested?

A: Oh yes, of course.

Q: That was when you were in jail for a week and Mogami came down?

A: When Mogami came to help me was when I got involved with the …taking all those sleeping pills.

Q: But you said after that..there was something…

A: Well, Mogami always came. He was always there. He was the man…he must have came down to my troubles about 5 to 10 times. That’s why he knows a lot about me.

Q: Why do you think the cops came to get the gun? Who tipped them off? Who did that?

A: It’s very hard. They came to raid the house. You see, you gotta remember, when you’re selling flour and water and they’re not used to it…I got a Cadillac. In 1964, I had a boat in the harbor. I had the big 55 foot cabin cruiser. And of course, I had the ranch in Hokkaido. And I’m out every night drinking and having a lot of fun. So that makes people think that you know you’re a millionaire and you can’t make it in the restaurant business, so you gotta be selling dope or …in those days they didn’t even know what dope was. And, actually, it was all legitimate pizza money. But, of course, I think my balance sheet will show I lost money.

Q: Like any good Japanese company.

A: But you got Cadillacs. My son’s got sports cars. Yae-chan had her own car. We couldn’t make ends met. Terrible life….So they raid the house. They raided the house so many times…that’s when I used to live over here. You know, behind the Clover. Now, it’s next door to TSK.CCC….I told you I got arrested that time for…of course, they had the gun…but an empty box of Johnny Walker. Would you believe that? An empty box of Johnny Walker, that the maid took her clothing in and brought it to my house. And they says, ‘Ah’

….but, of course, they did find my secret room. That house had a secret room. Course that house is torn down now, but it had a secret room in…it had a Japanese room in the back of the house, and then it had a clothing closet and if you opened the clothing closet, you got clothes, but if you go behind the clothing closet, it had a steel door that opened into a secret room. I never forget that fucking room….Let’s say we had a ten mat room, way in the back of the house and it was a tatami room,….sliding doors, Japanese got what you call a fusami, something like that, and you open that and its clothing. You know, hang it up. But when you separate it, there was a steel door and you open the steel door and you went into a little room that could have been like a two-mat room, three-mat room, and I used to put all my illegal shit there. My cigarettes and my whiskey. I’ll be a son of a bitch. They found that fucking room.

But the gun was not hidden there. It was out on the piano. That’s right. The day before that. How did it work? I got tipped off that they were gonna raid the house. So I went in that room and I think it also had a kotatsu. The tatami room had a kotatsu. I went in that room and I took all the booze out. I’m living across the street from then Azabu police station, and I took all the shit out and put it in the back of the truck of a Nash Rambler I had at the time. I put everything in back of the Nash Rambler. 5 or 6 cases of booze and cigarettes and shit like that. And my chauffeur’s driving it. And he’s hearing all this noise in the back of the car. And he opens it up and he sees all the booze and cigarettes and he figures I just made a haul somewhere. And he brought it back into the fucking house. And I can’t tell everybody I’m gonna get raided, you know. Jesus Christ. So there I was with my pants down. Probably Mogami told me they’re gonna raid my house.

So they went crazy. They knew the stuff was in the house and they couldn’t find it. Finally, they found it. So I got arrested.

Q: They put it back inside in the secret room?

A: Yeah. The stupid bastard. And that was a big house. That was an 85 tsubo house or something like that. It was a 3-story house. I could have hid it so many different places. Dumb bastard.

Q: Where’d you get this stuff, from the base?

A: All over. PX. Base.

Q: Were you selling it then or was it just for your own use?

A: Oh, restaurant sales. Oh, business was very good. My own restaurant. Bob, those days you gross a million yen, you know, today I can’t even gross a million yen. Who the fuck grosses a million yen anymore.

Q: With all that crowd Friday night, Jesus Christ.

A: Well, Friday night, you were here. 610,000 yen. You know I did good in March. I only lost about $4,000. I this business that’s good.

Q: What is this thing about tell pizza/pieces story? A note to myself.

A: Oh, that one. Prior to the Bay of Pigs invasion or after the Bay of Pigs invasion, I don’t know which one it was. I was in Miami and I went down to Fort Lauderdale. Some guy came down to pick us up and take us to Fort Lauderdale. Me and should we say my…American escort. I have a cousin. And we got in this guy’s car. And he was the driver. A big mother. Big enough to be a pro-wrestler.

Q: American. Cuban. Or what?

A: American. He was a member of the Alpha 66 group.

Q:What’s that?

A: That’s the group that handled the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Where Kennedy let them down and let them all get slaughtered. Shithead Kennedy.:

Q: This guy was an Anglo-Saxon. An Italian.

A: Anglo-Saxon. And we got in this car and he was driving us to Fort Lauderdale, And on the way to Fort Lauderdale, he asked me “What do I do?” or something like that, and I said, “pizzas.” And he misinterpreted it to mean pieces. And, of course, it’s a warm place and he’s got the window open and he probably didn’t hear me correctly. And he says, “oh, I can use 5,000.” And I said, “Everyday?” And, of course, now he got mad. And you don’t want to get those kind of people mad at you. So my friend who was sitting in the front seat with him, I was sitting in the back seat alone. He said “Nick is in the pizza business. P-I-Z-Z-A. The things you eat.” And of course, there was a big laugh. And then we went to an Oyster Bar in the middle of Fort Lauderdale. And these guys were all speaking Spanish. But I can understand Spanish. And in their conversation they started mentioning guns and Horowitz’s and you know. And I realized what they are talking about, I excused myself, I went back to my hotel in Miami, I got my suitcase and I went right to the airport and I came back to Tokyo. I certainly didn’t want to get involved in guns. So when I got back in Tokyo, which is like Monday or so or Tuesday morning, I got in my office and I sat down and my wife came in and said, “There’s a Japanese policeman outside here and he’s got some information that you’re dealing in guns and …and, you know, from the FBI. I think the guy’s name was Connors. New York City FBI man. Some kind of name like that….They were in my office. Japanese police. And my wife says, “It must be wrong. It can not be.” They sez, “Yeah, Mr. Nicolas is dealing with people in the gun business in Florida.” She sez, “That’s not true.” And she says, “If you want to see Mr. Nicolas, just open that door. He’s sitting there.” And the guy opened the door and looked in and there I was sitting there. And that was the end of that. But that’s how fast the word got up from that meeting. Picking out a nondescript Americans. I must have been followed all the way to Tokyo for Christssakes.

Q: So there was a spy in the group.

A: Who knows. No, it couldn’t be in the group. It had to be outside. Because in the group they would know that I was not involved in the conversation. So just somebody looking from the outside. Maybe they expected me to go out and get guns or something. I don’t know. That crazy? You can’t buy any guns in Japan. (note: American Tom Scully says he saw a case of shotguns in Nick Zappetti’s house in Tokyo. Zappetti denies being involved in gun running. But, well, he might because that is a very, very serious offense in Japan. Much, much worse than in the U.S. It’s the taboo of taboos. I suspect he was trying to protect a 3^rd party.)

(SEX STORIES/CAROUSING)

One time…I did that with a girl one day. She wanted money but I said, “You gotta be good, baby.” And when I took her in the hotel and started fucking her, she was terrible. You know, you’re lousy. You’re the lousiest fuck I ever got out. What nerve you got charging people money!” She gave me the money back. And I took it. She was a lousy piece of ass….Use it. It’s a true story. True story, yo. Jesus Christ. You would think that they know how to fuck and do this and do that. Become acrobatic. Shit I had to do all the work. I tell you crazy. I’m paying all the money. I gotta do all the work too? That’s no good.

Q: How much did you pay here?

A: Oh, probably 30,000 or 40,000 yen.

Q: When was this?

A: It was about 4 or 5 , 6 years ago. Not so long ago. Well, maybe I should say, when I was 50 years old. 10-15 years ago. I was chasing broads then….By the way, did you know that Frank Sinatra bought the Aladdin Hotel? You know the sex story about Frank Sinatra I told you? Copacabana girl. She’s in LA now.

Q: that’s great. She gave you the money back.

A: And I took it.

Q: Did you come?

A: I did all the work, I had to come. No, I think that’s misrepresentation. That’s bullshit. Q: Where’d you pick her up?

A: Oh, probably one of the club girls. I told ya, I used to go to the Copacabana, the Latin Quarter., Benibasha, and the chief bartender would always say, “There’s a new one.” And I’d nail the new one. I think I slept with over 3,000 girls in Japan. Different ones. I really enjoyed life.It was a great life. If sex is life. But I sure made a lot of fucking business mistakes. But they can’t take that away from you. I told you about the time the girl comes over to my wife and says, “I’m pregnant.”

Q: You didn’t tell me that.

A: That was when I had the restaurant down the street here. The one by the ‘kosokudoro” (the highway). And I was in there and my wife was behind the counter, or bar, you know.

Q: Where was this?

A: Gazembo-cho. The restaurant by the highway. And this girl goes over to my wife and says, “you’re husband got me pregnant.” She says, “What do you talk to me for. I didn’t get you pregannt. He got you pregnant. So go talk to him” (laughing) How would you like that if somebody goes over to your wife and tells her that. Jesus Christ.

Q: That’s a great line. That’s a great comeback.

A: She says, “Don’t talk to me. I didn’t do it.”

Q: She didn’t get pissed at you for that? She must’ve.

A: I was fucking everybody.

Q: That’s a funny story.

A; You know, this guy who works in JCIA now, my interpreter at times…he works for me once a week. I used to call him up every god damn time and say go find my car. I left it someplace in Tokyo. Can you imagine that? I used to pick up these broads and I always had a big Cadillac. Wind up someplace sleeping with them. And I can’t find my car on the way home. I don’t know where I parked it. And I have to call up the police and say I left my car overnight someplace. …What area?…Jeez. I don’t know…I can’t remember. I took a taxi home and the taxi bill was so much. That’s the only way I can figure out approximately how far from home I was. I must have done that at least once a week.

(POST DIVORCE “2, FAMILY RELATIONS)

Q: You’re son. You get along with him?

A: I get along with him.

Q: He didn’t want to let you see his daughter one time?

A: Yeah, he didn’t want…Cuz see he had trouble with his wife. And if I show up then they see a gaijin. They don’t like that. But I went anyway. Cuz I was trying to find out where his wife ran away to. But you know what the principal said. “Everybody has trouble.” There must be a common problem with the wives and husbands.

Q: Wife is Japanese and she didn’t like the idea of having a gaijin grandpapa?

A: No, he changed his nationality because of the kids. You don’t want to be an American in this country. And you should know a little bit about that. But nobody gonna believe you. Why the Japanese such nice people…Ameicans are hypocrites. This guy Mayor Frank Fossi from Hawaii. Boy he gets out there and he says we don’t need you Japanese, get the hell out of here. You know what he did? He just came over here with a tourist group from Hawaii that encouraged the Japanese to come to Hawaii. Ain’t that something?

And you know another thing going on over there that’s very interesting, the Japanese wanted to buy a golf course, something like that, and he insisted that they give him 100 million yen to change the rules so that they can build a golf course. 100 million dollars. They offered 5. And he gave them a bad time. They went to 25. Now they’re up to 50. & they still didn’t get permission.

But he comes over here, hat in hand, looking for…fucking dago from New York. And an ex-Marine too.

Q: Your son changed his citizenship to the Japanese. He doesn ‘t like foreigners? He don’t like us. Basically, he don’t like his father. But you can’t help it because they’re subject to things that we don’t see, because we don’t see all the Japanese periodicals and we don’t see all the newspapers and we don’t see the slander sheets and the stories against the Americans. But a kid that’s growing up in Japan, he sees all that. He hears it from his friends. Yaho….

Q: What’s that?

A: Isn’t that a vulgar way to call somebody?

Q: Aho.

A: He’s a nice kid. He’s friendly and sociable, but..you see, you remember something that I told you which was…I don’t know how you write it in the book…but, the reason I’m anti-Japanese is that I got a Japanese wife…My particular wife is such a mean son-of-a bitch that I’m anti-Japanese. Arrogant. Stupid.

Q: We went through that before.

A: Yeah, so this is, so

Q: Can I meet Vince.

A: Sure.

Q: Will he talk to me?

A: Yeah.

Q: I’d like to meet everybody…..the one I really want to meet is Miss Hokkaido.

A: Well, I tell you, you gotta go up to Hokkaido to do that.

Q: Would she talk to me you think?

A: Yeah, you speak Japanese. She’s gotta be a bag by now. She was born in Showa 22. That’s 1947.

Q: 43. She’s probably in good shape. 10 years younger than Jane Fonda.

A: I think she fucked so much she’s probably…

Q: But your daughter is different from Vince? She’s more open minded?

A: (nods)

Q: She’s in New Zealand now. She’s another one I’d like to meet.

.(BS)

A: I had so much legal troubles…Judge Kondo, he was my good friend. He was in charge of the fucking divorce courts. Judge Kondo. That’s proof in the pudding. You go to court so many times you get to know the judges. The shacho (president) of the fucking saiban. Katei saiban (family court).

Q: Nice to see you again Nick. Haven’t seen you for a couple of years.

A: Always back. In and out. In and out. Well I got 3 divorces.

Q: Did you tell your wife I wanted to interview her? I told her that once. I met her. She said Ok.

A: No, you’re not gonna get her, today, she called before. She went to the Yokota restaurant. She wanted to go straight home.

Q: I’ll get her one of these nights. (ed. No you won’t)

A: Oh yeah. She’s here every night.

Q: When did you first meet her?

A: When I opened the restaurant.

Q: In 1956?

(REISCHAUER) (J. CITIZENSHIP)

Q: By the way, I wanted to ask you, How did you feel when you became a Japanese citizen? Any emotions at all? Oh, well, of course, to me, it’s not a serious thing because I plan to become an American again. To me, it’s just something I have to go through in order to get my …you know, this is an economic thing, not a political thing….so I’m after my land in Hokkaido and I thought I could win my court case if I was a Japanese. And, so I had no emotional feelings about being and American or a Japanese. It was just a temporary situation. So if I can solve my court problems and get out of all these fucking courts, I will give up my Japanese citizenship. I don’t know if they’ll let me come back in the country. They may not allow me to enter Japan. See. So I have to think very carefully about that. Of course, I will find out what I can do and what I can’t do.

Q: What was that time you went to see (Ambassador) Reischauer and you asked him to help you out? What was that about?

A: ….Oh…They put in my passport book, for a one way trip to the United States. My passport, because I got involved in a gun deal. I mean the Imperial Hotel robbery. So I wanted to get that thing out of my passport. And of course good old Reischauer, the diplomat that he is, says, “I’m sure you know how to handle the situation.”

Q: Who put it in your passport?

A: The American Embassy. They put a stamp in the book that says “Valid for return trip to then United States only.”

So when I had to go down to immigration to get another 3-year extension, I had to staple all the book, so that they can’t open it. See if they see that thing they’re not going to give me an extension.

I contacted people in Washington DC to get that thing removed from my book. But finally, I got it done in Tokyo through Frank Scolinas the lawyer. It couldn’t be a very serious thing because it was …I didn’t pay much money to the lawyer….so…it came out of my book and my next book didn’t have it….Because you gotta go down and get your reentry visa and reentry visa and ….they see that, “this passport is only good for a one-way trip to the united States, how are you gonna get a reentry visa.”

Q: But Reischauer was no help.

A: No help at all. And my children were going to his sister-in-law’s school. We were contributing greatly to the school. Moneywise. So when that happened , I just said “Fuck them. I don’t need that kind of people.”

Q: Where’d you see Reischauer?

A: Oh I met him and his wife and his sister-in-law somewhere. I can’t remember where. Could be any place…Nishimachi School….And I thought it was a very backward answer, the son of a bitch….”I’m sure you can take care of yourself.” Shit. I didn’t ask him whether I can take care of myself or not, I asked him to help me take that page out of my passport….He was the ambassador…So I had to go through different methods. But I succeeded in having it removed.

(HOKKAIDO RANCH)

Q: Is it as incredibly complicated as the other ones?

A: No, my land purchase in Hokkaido started from the fact that I opened a pizza house in Tokyo. Showa 30.(31) 1956. And cheese was a problem. So I decided that I’m gonna go to Hokkaido. And make my own cheese. And, of course, my children very very happy over the story of going to Hokkaido and getting horses and ride around on the ranch. You know the cowboy theory.

So I went up to Hokkaido. A friend of mine. An Australian by the name of Roy Bowen lived up there.

Q: You were going to make your own cheese. Yeah. By the way, I made my own cheese. It didn’t taste good, but I made it. So I went up there. Some guy by the name of Roy Bowen, who was an Australian. He went up to Hokkaido—this miserable town called Oshamambe. Believe me, it’s a miserable town of 6-7,000 people. So …railroad hub, just north of Hakodate. About 100 km north. But up there, that’s a hop, skip and a jump. So I looked for Roy Bowen, because Roy Bowen came down to Tokyo one day and he says, “I got an ranch in Hokkaido.” And I says “Oh, that’s good. I’m interested in an ranch.” I said, “Whattya go on it?” He says, “Oh, I got 13 cows and 2 horses.” And

A lot of bullshit like that. And I sez “Well, can I buy in?” He says, “Give me two million yen and you can buy in.”

So foolish Nick. The Japanese is “Bakayaro” (stupid fool) I gave him two million yen. And he’s got a ranch someplace in Hokkaido. So, that was Xmas time. When the summer came, I got my chauffeur, my car, I had 1958 car. Chevrolet. I remember I drove all the way up to Hokkaido. I took my wife and my chauffeur. And we had a full car. 5-6 people. And we went up to Hokkaido and we realized how big Hokkaido was. How do you find anybody in Hokkaido. I mean that s a joke. But that island is god damn big. I had my wife. My chauffeur. My children. Anyway, we made a pleasure trip out of it. So we sent the car up ahead. And we went by airplane. The chauffeur drove the car up.Anyway, son , we went to Hokkaido and we met the car at the Hokodate airport. And those days, they had Friendships. No, I should be very careful. Maybe there was not even no Hakodate Airport. So I went up there.And we drove around. And I didn’t know nothing about how to find a gaijin. How course now I can find a gaijin anyplace. But in those days I wasn’t, shall we say, awake. So we drove around Hokkaido, we had a lot of fun, we had corn. We just took a trip. Fishing and all that balogna that goes with nit. And we gave up. And we came back down to Tokyo.

Sure enough, next Xmas, Mr. Bowen came to Tokyo again. Andn visited my place. And I asked him “How’s my half interest doing?” And he says, “Oh, fine. We’re doing very good and this, that and the other thing.” And I said, “By the way, where are you?” And he said, “Oshamamabe.” But this time, I wrote it down. He says Oshamambe is 100 km north of Hakodate. And I says, Ok, it’s on the main road. So I wrote everything down. Come June, I went to Hokkaido. This is June. This would be Showa 37. So that would be 1956. No, 1962. So I went up there in the summer of 1962 and I look for Mr. Bowen. And this time, I didn’t bring my family. I just went up there with my interpreter, who was a thief. All the Japanese that work for me are all thieves.

I picked the bottom of the barrel you know. I mean that’s all that’s left for gaijin is the bottom of the barrel. But anyway, so I went up there and I went to Mr. Bowen’s and my ranch. We owned 50-50. And I says, “Where’s the 2 horses?” He says, “I didn ‘t buy them yet.” I said, “But I gave you the money a year and a half ago. And you said you had two horses then.” I said, “OK. Where’s the 13 cows. He said, “I didn’t buy them yet.”

So I went in his block house. He had a house made out of blocks, that the wind went through it. And in the house, he had, for the living room set, the interior of his old Chrysler.The seats. That was his living room set. And I looked at him and I says, “You got to be kidding.” This poor bastard is broker than broke.” So I says, “I quit. Look, I tell you what you do.”

Q; What year was the Chrysler?

A: Oh, it must have been a 1945-46 Chrysler. He just had the seats. So anyway, I said, “Look Roy. My financial condition is very bad and yours is very good, so why don’t we just forget about it? You keep the two million yen. You keep the 13 chickens or whatever you got. And forgot the horses and forget the cows and forget this place and I’m leaving.””

So I just took a 2 million yen bath. And in those days, two million yen was a tremendous amount of money.

Q: How old was this guy Roy Bowen, then?

A: Well, let’s see, he was older than me. I’m 68 now. So he must have been 50 or over then. He married a young Japanese girl. And the girl’s last name was “Sunshine.” How do you say “Sunshine” in Japanese?

Q: Nikko? Hikari? .

A: So he called his place the sunshine ranch….He had nothing on it. Nothing. Abolslutely nothing. He didn’t even dig a hole in then ground and plant a radish.

Q: How big was this?

A: I think he had 40 Chobu., Which was about a hundred acres. One Chobu is 2.5 acres.He either had that or same like me 12 acres.12 Chobu. He had something in that neighborhood, which would be about 25 acres. But anyway, so I gave up. I said, “Forgettaboutit. No bad feelings. I got cheated, but then again it’s just the name of the game.I went back to my hotel and, of course, it’s such a small town. Everybody knows what happens. See. So I went to my hotel. And sez I might as well enjoy life. I never been to Oshamamabe. My first regret. I’ll probably regret it until I die and my grandchildren and grand-grand-grand children and everybody will probably regret it.

But, anyway, so then the farmers came. One of the farmer’s came. And he says “we are working with Mr. Bowen and this that and the other thing. And he has no money and we want to work with you and we’ll cooperate. And we got this and we got that.

Anyway, between the 4 or 5 farmers they had about 200 Chobu. That means 600 acres? A chobu is 2.5 acres. 500 acres, eh? So I sez ok. I don’t want to buy 500 acres. I don’t want to take people off their land. I wind up with land and nobody to work it so it’s a waste of time of time and money and effort. And so all I’m looking for is a small place. So these farmers got together and I decided I’ll buy one man ‘s property. That gives me a legal right to get in there. So I bought a guy by the name of Kambara. I bought his property. It was very, very expensive. It was, Christ Almighty, 17 yen a tsubo. Or something like that. Nana-ju-yon-mon i sen (741,000) For san-man roku-sen kyu-haku (36,900) tsubo. Ju-ni (12) chobu. In that category.

So ok. I agreed to buy that.

Q: You don’t remember what the final figure was?

A: 741,000 yen. 17 yen divided gives you 8 tsubo. But anyway. My honest interpreter. Another fucking thief. Like I said, I know all the thieves. He made a “bai-bai keiyaku” (sales contract) with them and without my knowledge, I now was buying, 200 hectares of land. And I got a contract that says I’m buying the land. I got it in English and Japanese. The man signed it. And I’m buying then land and I’m paying for it. My first payment was exactly 269,000 yen, which I paid, through the bank, I sent the money from Tokyo. I had the bank make the payment and the bank got the receipt. And the bank paid the government the money that the guy owed, so the man could never touch the money. I thought I was pretty smart that way. There’s always the receipt in the bank. There’s always the legal documents that the banks have. In the meantime, I kept sending money up there and when I went to the bank, it was just a brand new bank, the Oshamambe Shinyo Ginko. And the bank manager said to me, why don’t I invest in the bank? I said, “Hey, that’s a good idea. What are you capitalized at?” He says, “We’re gonna capitalize at 4 million yen.” I says, “OK. Can I buy 100% of the shares?” Can you imagine that? He looked at me and he says, “No, foreigners can not buy bank shares.” Or something like that. I said, “Well, you want me to invest in the bank?” He says, “Well, why don’t you just invest 5%. 200,000 yen.” I said, “Jesus, that’s not even one-day income to me. Why do I want to invest such a small amount? I want to buy a big share of the bank.” Anyway, I got nowhere. So I put up 200,000 yen. And to show that my hearts in a good position, I deposited 4 million yen which doubled their capitalization instantly. So I thought I was buying into the bank. And all I got was what they called “Teiki.”(“Teikin-time deposit?)

Ain’t that something?

Q: What did you buy in the beginning?

A: Well, I thought I bought 5% of the bank. I tried to buy 100% of the bank. So I had 4 million yen sent up from Tokyo. And put it in the bank. And I sez I want to buy all the shares in the bank. I want to buy 100% of all the shares. 4 million capitalization. I’ll buy them all. And they wouldn’t do that. No, no, no. They wouldn’t do that. He says, you can’t do that. And everything is in Japanese, of course, in those days. I didn’t understand Japanese that much, but I do know what capitalization is. And I do know what shares and stocks and all that crap is. So I wound up putting 4 million yen in a private checking account and 200,000 yen in the bank.

And it turned out that the 200,000 yen, when I checked it 20 years later, how do you like that for balls, was worth 400,000 yen. And I says to the man, “I thought I owned 5% of the bank?” Now the bank’s got a big building. The bank’s really developed.

Q: How could you think you were going to buy 5% of the bank if he told you foreigners couldn’t own shares in the bank. What were you buying then?

A: I bought a teiki.

Q: Oh a time deposit. Teikin.

A: That’s all I got was a time deposit.

Q: But you didn’t know you were getting a time deposit?

A: I thought I owned 5% of the bank. I couldn’t buy 100%. So he says, ok, just 200,000 yen is plenty. Because the other one is in my checking account, see. So I took 200,000 yen out of my checking account, gave it to the bank and I thought I bought 5% of the shares. Now many, many, many years later, like about 3 years ago, I went to the bank and I said “I want to put a new roof on my barn?” So I sez how much is the 200,000 yen that I deposited 20 years ago worth?” Showa 40 (1965) to be exact. Something like that. Maybe even before 40 nen. He says, “Just a moment.” He gets the book out. And he says, “Your deposit is now worth 420,000 yen.” I sez “Wait a minute. I put in 200,000 yen when people were making like 500 yen a month salary. (Note: Actually, it was more like 10,000 yen). Now you’re telling me my money is worth less than one month’s salary for anybody? I sez, “Come on.” You know.

So anyway, I said “I want to build a roof. On my barn and I want to borrow money from the bank to build a roof on my barn.” He says, “We can’t lend you money.” (laughing) I thought I owned 5% of the bank. I tried to buy 100% of the bank. And my credit is no good. I can’t even borrow money. How do you like that?

Q: At that time you said 500 yen was equivalent to a month’s income?

A: No, it couldn ‘t be that low. Maybe 5,000 yen was a month’s income. I doubt if it was that high. But then a little research will tell you what Showa 37.

Q: 200,000 yen

A: Was about 360 that time.

Q: So that ‘s two year’s salary.

A: So it went up to 220,000 yen. Plus my twenty.

Q: I think that (garbled) was less than the average bank employee’s salary. Years.

A: 200,000 in those days was a lot of money. Today, it’s not even../.yeah…probably one month’s salary to a fucking clerk in the office.

Q: And then you ask, can I borrow money to fix the roof. .

A And the guy says no. Now this is a bank that I put millions and millions and millions of yen in it, and …

Q: Why did he say no? Because you are a foreigner?

A: Because I have no mortage. He wanted me to put up a mortgage. I says “What are you talking about?” I says, “My property is in Tokyo.” He says, “We don’t take Tokyo property.” I says, “For 1.2 million what the hell do I want a mortgage to (garbled) for.”

“Why should I mortage for 1.2 million. You got 400,000 yen of my money, and you’ve had it for 20 some-odd years.”

Q: But it wasn’t because you were a gaijin. It was just because you didn’t have a mortage.

A: Who’s to say? Who’s gonna tell you to your face because you’re a gaijin. Don’t forget. Tokyo is Tokyo. Japan is Japan. They are two different countries.

So anyway, so

Q: Did you know what this teikin was? He said teikin, right?I didn’t know what the word “teikin” meant, which is what we say in English, CD’s. Cash Deposit. (ha)

Q: He just let you think that…

A: He just played a game with me. He took advantage of the fact that…You see, it’s some hard to say what these people say among themselves. Because you know what 2 white men say when they see a nigger, or when they see a black man, they say, “that’s a nigger.” What do two Japanese say when they see a foreigner? So who the hell knows what they say.

So anyway, my illustrious interpreter who caused me nothing but headaches and troubles and whatnot. He goes around and he makes a “bai-bai keyaku” with the other four farmers, making Nicola’s the purchaser of 200 Chobu of land. That’s 500 acres. On a monthly installment plan which amounted to peanuts. I could have bought the whole 500 acres for less than the 4 million yen that I put in then bank. And many many years laters, no not so many years later, about a year later, I found out that I was buying all their farm lands. And, of course, I called the farmers in and I…

Q: How did he do that? Did he have your hanko (seal) or something?

A: No, he just made a contract and signed my name. Just a simple piece of paper. They all agreed. Each one. A different person.

Q: He forged your signature?

A: No, no. Just write my name in Japanese. And that was enough. They made a bai-bai keyaku.

Q:Why did he do that?

A: At the end, when I found out, I didn’t want to buy nobody’s property, I don’t want their farmlands. I’m not here to take their fucking farmland away from him. His object was that when the time came, the property would be transferred to his name. And he would own 500 acres of maybe pretty good farm land. But I didn’t know nothing about the contracts. Nothing at all. And I’m paying the farmers a monhtly salary. Which is far, far greater than my employees in Tokyo are getting. Like I believe I was paying them about 20,000 yen a month, which is a lot of money. Each farmer.

Q: To make your cheese.

A: I bought cows. I bought thoroughbred cows. I built a cowbarn for six million yen which was the best barn in Hokkaido at that time. I filled it up with 22 cows. I had 5 farmers. And I don’t think anybody even milked the cows. They were supposed to take care of the farmers, the cows, I got 500 acres of land that I’m using, and all of it is undeveloped. So I bought two bulldozers. From Komatsu. Big ten tonners. And, of course, I bought a tractor, all the stuff that goes with a tractor. I bought a bulldozer with all the blades. Oh, I tell you, I bought everything. I bought trucks. I bought a car. You name it. I owned it. And I got 5 farmers, And one of my best milkers is a cow we called Maria. Good old Maria. She was the best cow. And one day I went up there. And I just got there and everybody is hush, hush and I could tell there is something wrong here today. What the hell is going on here, today. And most of the time they were in my big home. I built a 5-bedroom home there. And they just used to lay around doing nothing. Drinking beer. And having a grand party. I paid all the bills.

Q: How big was the house?

A: 5 bedroom house. Japanese. The American way. Oh, it’s about a 2,500 square feet house. Big living room. And of course it had a flush toilet now. Even people downtown didn’t have a flush toilet. And I’m up in the mountains. I’m actually about 5 miles away from the town. Or the main railroad station. Up on the hill. Beautiful view. A very, expensive beautiful view…if you want to look at it from that point of view. So I went there to stay and everybody, they’re trying to stop me from walking around, and looking at the place, you know. And, of course, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I smelled something was wrong. My interpreter wouldn’t say anything to me, you know. And I walked in the first barn and there’s my beautiful cow Maria, dead on the ground. And I looked and I said, “That’s my best cow. Why is the cow dead? And, of course, nobody knows how ton speak English. Nobody knows how to translate. You ask question and they all “..saaa” (Sucks wind between teeth) You know that style? You ever see them don that? And I got that “..saaaa”….ne….Jesus Christ Almighty. I called up the Nokyo (Agricultural Association) and they brought a guy out and I said, “Tell me why this cow died.” And he says, “Neglect.”

I got a Japanese dictionary and I’m looking for the Japanese word. And I said “Show me the Japanese word.” And the English word is there and it says, “neglect.”

And, I says, “I’ll be a son of a bitch.”

My best fucking cow. These are all thoroughbred cows. These are all with pedigreed papers. So I called up the butcher. And I says, “Come on out here. I want to sell you 12 cows.” He says “What do you want me to do with 12 cows.?”

I said, “Kill’em and eat’em. Kill’em and sell’em. I don’t give a shit what you do with them. I just want to get them off my property.”

He says, “I can not give you milk prices.”

I says, “Just give me something, so I can get rid of everybody on the property. They don’t get no more salary. I don’t have no more worries about cows. And that was the end of my ownership of milkers.

And, of course, all 5 farmers say I’m a dirty, son-of-a bitch bastard. Because they lost their livelihood. Nobody cried about the cow that died. They only cried about their income.

Q: You fired them?

A: I fired all of them. And I was man enough and nasty enough to put’em in one room and beat the shit out of all of them.

Q: You did?

A: No, I wanted to. But they wouldn’t give me that satisfaction. They ain’t about to raise their voice. Nooo. So I went out of the fucking cow business.

Q: But you actually made cheese up there for a way.

A: Yes. Then later on. I didn’t know what to do. I got this place. And I sez OK, let’s go in the pig business. So now I started a pig farm. And I went to Futami.That’s in Nasu. The Futami Pig is…the pig raisin’ is approved by the Japanese. Imperial Family….Futami Bokujo. Up in Nasu some place.

Q: Wait…You said this all started out when you said you were going to get Japanese citizenship to get your land in Hokkaido back.

A: Yeah. This is the land.

Q: This is the same land. I already bought it once.

A: Now the cows are gone. I fired all of them.

Q: You just have the land sitting there with this really nice house. Beautiful barn. I got it and its empty. So I don’t know what to do. What farmer we got who speaks a little English. We call him Farmer Brown. But his name is Kobayashi. And I hate to say this but when I was a little kid in New York, we used to have a guy named 3-Finger Brown, he was a Mafia man, I don’t want to mention his real name, I think his name is Luchese, but he was known as 3-Finger Brown., famous name, he’s some kind of a relative or something like that. But we called this guy Farmer Brown, because he was a good image of Mr. 3-Finger Brown in New York City. Harlem.

Anway, so Farmer Brown came around and he says, “I’d like to take care of the place and keep it clean and everything and just pay a small salary to keep it clean and whatnot. And, I figured well, I got plenty of money and I can’t accuse all of them…maybe this guy had a …he was a little better than the other ones…so I agreed to give him a job and he goes out there and keeps the place clean. So then, he came around and says we should go in the pig business. And I says “Why the pig business? And he gives me a long story that pigs only last six months, and you get your money back and you can count the babies and you cans them and you can feed them. You know the whole rigamarole about how to raise pigs and all that. And he knew nothing about pigs. The only thing he knew was if it’s on a dish he can eat it. So, I went to Futami Bokujo (Futami Ranch), I did my homework and found out that Futami Bokujo sells the best pigs in Japan, and I went up there and bought 30 pigs and 230,000 yen each—an astronomical figure for a pig. 30 females. Six million yen. Thoroughbreds. They call them LL. Landresses. Anyway, they’re big long skinny pigs. They’re weak mother fuckers. They can’t stand up on their four feet. But they’re big beautiful white pigs. So I bought the Landresses. So he gave me three pigs free. Because he said the long ride between Nasu up here…Tochigi ken (prefecture) is Nasu, I think…and Hokkaido, by the time they get there, some of them will die. So I bought all these pigs. They’re about 7-8 months old or something like that. Anyway, I think the pigs were probably worth about 5-10,000 each. If they’re worth that much. But I paid 200,000 yen. Anyway, each come easy go.

So we went up there and we only lost one pig or two pigs on the road. My son drove the pigs up there. We borrowed a truck and drove the pigs up there. Oshamambe. Osha is Hasegawa no. Manbe is ichi-man, ni-man. Be is Kobe. Anyway, that’s Oshamambe, because Hokkaido name’s you’re never gonna figure them out. They have no relation to Kanji. There’s a city up there can Rabun. Try to put that down in Kanji. They got all those kind of cities up there. Anway, they had the pigs and so I had the place all fixed and cleaned up. It was a beautiful place. I had a nice pig farm. And I found out about pigs. And this pig didn’t want to go inside the thing, so I got me a piece of wood and I whacked him a few times on the ass to make him move into the barn. And I whacked him and whacked him and he didn ‘t move. And then he just tipped over and fell asleep. So jesus christ, you know how do you fall asleep. And first thing I know…my first pig, my first day, he died from a heart attack. I said this is the beginning of a lucky series. I got 30 pigs. I got 3 pigs free. And already I lost 30 pigs. And my first day isn’t over yet. 2 died in the truck and I killed one hitting him with a piece of wood. Got so excited. Pigs are very, very delicate sons of bitches. Tough bastards. They’re delicate. Anyway, they won’t go in buildings. They won’t go out of buildings. You know, but anyway, I lost the first pig. So I learned, don’t touch him. Don’t touch them no more. And I just don’t touch pigs no more.

So that went on and and on and I found out that Landresses, although they’re good breeders, they’re good pigs, they’re not accepted in the market. And In went down and found out that the Japanese like pigs that fit in a box and the Landresses are too long and they don’t fit….in the entire….

Q: No. no. I’ve just had a bad day.

A: I’ve had a couple of bad days. I’ve had a lot of bad days. I guess I hit a record low here. I had 28 customers here. Spent 88,000 yen. You talk about a bad day. Everyone of my restaurants, which don’t even come close to Roppongi, they don’t come close to the size of this elaborate operation, outgrossed me yesterday. And my manager hires arubeit (parttime) labor. I can’t wait to tear this place apart. Anway, it’s all in the game. The other restaurants make money, so …

Q: All right so. What happened to the pigs. Did they just die off one-by-one?

A: No, no,no. I increased the herd. I was selling about a thousand pigs a year. Probably more than that. Probably was up to 1500 pigs a year. Pig breeding. You see what you do…if you want a lesson in how to buy pigs….is you buy the Landress..Then you buy the hamster, the Hamshire, the black pig with the white line…Landress is a Dutch pig. You mix it with a Hamshire. And then you mix those babies with a Red Duroc, which is an American pig. And the results are what they call F-1. And the F-1 pig is a good beef pig. The Hamshire (Hampshire?) is a short round mother. He’s a strong. The Duroc is a tall red, wiry son of a gun. It’s an American pig. So you mix these three and now you get a good strain of pigs….Duroc is a red American pig. I mean red. Almost as red as tobasco. And he’s long-legged. Big of course. And he’s a male. The Hampshire’s a male. The Duroc is a male. And the females…you inseminate them with the Landress and then you get babies. You separate the females. You keep the females and …you gotta look at the way they walk. You gotta count how many titties they got. So you always got to to try to pick a female that walks nice. And it’s got 14 tits. Because they’re gonna have babies. And each pig sucks one tit. They don’t move. They go their tit. They just sit there. They go their tit and boy nobody gets their tit except them So we picked out these pigs.First we have Hampshire and Landress. After we mixed them with the Hampshire and the Landress. So we inseminate the females with the Duroc. So we kept that process going. And we wound up selling 100 to sometimes 150 pigs per month.

Q: What’s the end product called?

A: F-1. Everybody uses that word F-1. I don’t know why. Buy gasoline. It’s F-1. You got a race car . It’s F-1.

Q: Formula One pigs. Grand Prix pigs.

A: And I learned a lot. I learned that you gotta put tags in their ear. You gotta have a real goddamn computer system to know what’s going on. You gotta be highly efficient. Which I wasn’t. I didn’t have tags in my pigs ears. Like I used to go up there…every other week, I went up there. Until I started realizing, it’s funny, but I lost this pig and I lost that pig. I had so many pigs and I sold so many and the farmer said they died. And I realize now I’m getting cheated. My farmer Brown was really been giving me the shaft.

(tape off, rest)

(MISS HOKKAIDO)

Q: Tell me about the Hokkaido girl. You divorced your second wife to marry her. Tell me that story.

A: Now, my second wife. You know, I have to explain this to you, because it’s so true. I been saying it lately and it’s why I can remember it. You know I’m anti-Japanese. But the truth of the matter is why am I anti-Japanese. I’m anti Japanese because I married this woman. Twice. Not once. And she’s such a mean, son of a bitching bitch. But being a woman, as soon as you call them a bitch and a son-of-a-bitch, they change and they become sweet and lovable. So I know so many Japanese people that I know. I can’t say I hate them. But I say I’m anti-Japanese and the reason is my women. This particular woman is something special.

But I enjoy sex. I think it’s great. But this woman, I would go there and she would say, “What again?” I said, “Shit, I’m Italian. We fuck everyday. You know, why not. I’m healthy. I’m strong. I eat good. I drink good. I, I fuck good too, you see. So I could tired of that crap.

So I was up in Hokkaido one day and I was up there with a guy named Shafer. He was a Jewish guy. He was in the insurance business. But he was also a movie star. He worked in Spain as a movie star. Good lookin’ mother. And I was walking down the street in Sapporo with him and we’re going to the train station to go to Oshamambe. Because that time we used fly up to Chitose, then fly up to Sapporo, then take a train back the other way. And enjoy a little bit of Sapporo life.

….as a matter of fact in Sapporo, I hate a seaweed salad one day.,..You know I don’t like anything about the ocean. Of course, they have kegani (hairy crab) there. And, of course, I knew a lot of people in Sapporo. Clubs people. Bar bands. Ai Jun.The Korea guy that what, married Patty Kim? One of the Kim Sisters. Jim Strong was another guy that married the Kim Sisters. Patty Kim. You know the Korean singer.

So I was walking down the street with Shafer. I can’t remember his first name. Jack. Or Ken. Shafer. Or Shaker. Something like that. And this beautiful girl comes up. She’s walking. And hye, I tell you. She was really good looking. And she looked at us, because we were gaijin. And you don’t see many gaijins in Sapporo. Let’s see. She was born in Showa 22. They that would be Showa 40. (1965)(Actually, no, it was Showa 44, 1968). About. She just won the Miss Hokkaido contest. “Jun Suzuran” I think they call it. So, I thought, you know she was looking at us.Of course, I’m with Ken Shaker. Good looking son of a bitch. And I figure she’s looking at him. Eh? So she said I says uh…me, I’m very aggressive. I said “Where you going baby?” or words to that effect. And, of course, she didn’t understand any English. So I sez “Doko iku no?” And so she looked at me and she sez right back, “doko iku no.” So I sez, “we’re going to Chitose Station. Sapporo Station.” So she decided to walk with us. So I think she’s looking at this good looking guy. And I must have been wrong. Because she asked me for my name card. And I says OK, I gave her my name card. And she gave me her name card. And I put it in my pocket. I didn’t pay attention. I couldn’t read it anyway. It’s in Japanese. And she told me her name and of course I instantly forgot it. And she was dressed in a black suit and believe me she was a good looking fucking broad. I mean good-looking. But I never thought I was the target for her. Because I run around in Sapporo and I know a lot of people. And I met a lot of people and all that crap.

Q: Long hair?

A: Yeah, just plain beautiful. Anyway, I could tell you she looks like (the popular actress) Rumikyo Koyanagi. Same type. Big tits. Nice…I mean Miss Sapporo was something really nice. And, of course, I don’t pay that much attention. We talk a little in my Japanese-English language, which is terrible. So we got to the train station, we said sayonara and we took the train to Oshamambe.

And in Oshamambe, I never forget it, we took a pig, we killed a pig, slit it down the middle, put some steel rods in it, and rotisserated it. And I says to Ken “I don’t know why you come over here, you’re Jewish. You’re not gonna eat pig. He says, “I’m only Jewish when I’m in the synagogue. When I’m at a dining table, I eat anything.”

It’s like the joke about the lesbian who saw her girl friend and she says “hello, honey brunch.” Not honey bunch, but honey brunch. (laugh) But anyway, a little humor goes a long way. So anyway, I had a picture of Ken and me by this pig barbecue. And I said “Ken, I’m gonna send it to your rabbi. He’ll excommunicate you.

But anyway, then, I went up to Sapporo. And I was having trouble with my present wife. My #2 wife. So I went to one kid over there and I said I want to meet Miss Hokkaido. I said, if I gotta be married, I might as well have the best girl in town in Miss Hokkaido. I said “You find her for me because when I come back I want to meet her.”

So, sure enough. You know I used to go up there twice a month. And I went up there and I went to this hotel, the manager was there. And I says, “Find Miss Hokkaido for me?” And he says, “Yeah.” I said, “That’s good.”

Q: Did you know this girl was Miss Hokkaido?

A: I didn’t know it was Miss Hokkado.

Q: You just decided you were going to marry her?

A: I didn’t give a shit who it was. I’m gonna marry Miss Hokkido. I’m gonna marry the beauty queen of Hakkaido. I got enough fucking money. There’s no competition with anybody with money. I beat everybody with money at that time. So, he said OK. And I took out this card and I said “I met this very pretty girl.” He says, “Yeah. He says, that’s the girl you’re gonna meet today.” I says, “You’re kidding.” He says, “Yeah, that’s Miss Hokkaido.” I said “God damn it, she was a pretty girl. Beautiful girl.”

So sure enough. She’s got my name card. My name card at that time, I got about 7 or 8 fucking companies.I had everything you can think of on the name card. I had a double name card. With all different companies on it. I was in the meat processing business. I had a farm in Hokkaido.Stores. I had stores, restaurants. I had a lot of bullshit. Supporting a lot of companies. But anyway,

But anyway, the girl came. I sat down and had lunch with her in the Royal Hotel in Sapporo.

Q: What year was this?

A; Showa 42. (1967) (Note. It was Showa 43. 1968) She was bout 20 years old and she’d just won the beauty thing there. So I told her, “I’m not looking for a piece of ass, I’m looking to get married. And if you qualify. I’ll marry you.”

Q: How in the hell did you say this…with the language?

A: I don’t know how the hell I do it, but anyway she says “What is qualification?”

“Moshi anata wa tottemo ii josan.” (If you’re a really nice girl.) Or something like that.

She says “What’s a ‘ii josan.”(nice girl)

I says “Shojo” (virgin).

So she says, “I’m a shojo.”

And I said, “Very good. Let’s find out.”

And she says, “Not today.”

And I says, “Why not?”

And she says, “That’s my mother over there. And my mother’s sister. And they’re watching us.” They’re sitting at a different table.

And I says, “Jesus Christ, you’re mother’s younger than I am.”

I was a terrific 46 years old then.

So anyway, I said I’m going to go down to Oshamambe to my ranch and I’m gonna come back on a certain date. Can we meet? Yes. And we made the meeting. And like I said, I’m a brash, arrogant bastard when it comes to sex. So I proceeded to take her, meet her in the hotel, take her upstairs, and we had sex. And she was a virgin. And I fell in love. I hate to say it. This was the second virgin. The first one got away, This one I’m not gonna let get away. First it was Takaishi. Meguro. The pachinko girl. She was a virgin too. But, anyway, so. We started going to Sapporo. Sex all over the place. And when I went to this girl’s house, even though I always rented a hotel Royal room, she didn’t want to wait to go to the hotel, she said “Let’s screw right here.” I said “This is your private house and your mother’s downstairs. And your grandmother’s there.” And she says, “That don’t mean nothing.”

But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get a hard-on, knowing that those people are downstairs and and this girl is gonna start saying, “Ohhh. Ooooooh. And all that shit.” And I said, “Jesus Christ. No thank you.”…

Q: She really got to like it then.

A: Oh, she was great. She was the greatest….oh, I know now that when you break a cherry and you’re screwing her, you’re the greatest guy in the world. Until that first, what do we call it, sun rise ends. Then baby, believe me, that girl, I used to shack up with her, never stopping. Never stopping. I felt like it was a 24-hour ordeal. And I decided that this is so good, so beautiful and so young and so clean…everything was in her favor…that, fuck it, I’ll get divorced.

That was the biggest mistake I made. I let sex get involved in my fucking

Q: Hotels were western style? Her house was Japanese style.

A:. Yeah. Tatami room. I just can’t see that. Because she was on the second floor and everybody was on the first floor, I know they’re gonna hear. Japanese houses. Christ almighty. But anyway, so.

And I married her.

I got divorced from this Yae Koizumi. And to divorce her. I gave her 275 tsubo in Yokota.

Q: The Judge ordered you to do that, right.

A: Of course, it was an agreement. I mean, she went for it, she got it. You know, wives, when they want something, they get it. So I gave her 275 tsubo in Yokota with the restaurant on it. I gave her Roppongi property, across the street from Azabu Keisatsu. 75 tsubo. And I gave her 50 million yen in cash. (note: Yae denies receiving 50 million yen cash).

And it was the biggest mistake of my life. The complete biggest. That young cunt fucked me all up terrifically. Of course, it was not her fault. It was my stupidity. Today, if you add that property up in value, forgettaboutit. There ain’t enough spaces on the page to put the zeroes down.

Q: I thought you said you went court and the judge gave all the stuff to her because you weren’t Japanese. He said you weren’t Japanese and you couldn’t own land, and youn can’t keep it, if you were going to be divorced.

A: No, no, no. You can own land, but you can’t own farmland. I owned the land over here, right across the street (across Roppongi Crossing) where the Clover is. It’s a back street where TSK.CCC is. But I had the (garbled) house there. You can own commercial property.. You can own private property. But you can not own farm property. There’s many countries in the world, but they don’t allow you to own farm property. There’s many countries in the world, but they don’t allow you to own farm property.

Q: The judge didn’t order you to…

A: It was a court…I mean how do you say it, the judge didn’t order, but it was a …a what do you say, when the judge says you got to give…this that and the other thing, and she’s asking for it, and her lawyer’s pushing for it, and it’s a settlement in court for the divorce and you got to pay.

Q: So you don’t think the judge was picking on you because you were a foreigner…

A: No, no…I wouldn’t…well, of course, who knows his attitude. But I didn’t give a shit. I’m gonna get divorced and whatever it costs me I’m gonna get divorced. And, believe me, it cost me a tremendous amount. But at that time, who cares, you know? The pecker is stronger than the fucking brain. The only time you’re sensible is when your pecker is limp. And won’t stand up. Then you become a sensible person. By that time, it’s too fucking late. So that’s what I paid to get divorced.

Then, I started getting reports that my wife in Sapporo was enjoying sex with everybody. How about that? Her name was Mayumi…what was her last name. Jesus Christ I can’t remember her last name. Hori. You can write her name down. So one day I got a report that she was shacking up with Fuse Akira. (popular ballad singer in Japan. Later married and divorced Olivia Hussey.) You could put his name down. But it didn’t dawn on me, because I was in the house one day and she had his picture. Just a little 3×3 picture that she cut out of a magazine. It wasn’t a private or personal picture. But her cousin, which was her mother’s sister’s daughter, they were buddy-buddy. They were living in the same room. Kazuko.So I couldn’t.

Q: They were living in the same house. With you?

A: No, no. I lived in a hotel. When I married her I rented my own house. I tried to build a house on the property there. But I got nowhere.

Q: You didn’t live together.

A: Well, we lived together in another house. I can’t even say where it is, because I don’t know. But it’s in Sapporo. So I rented a place and I stayed with her. A new house. I think the rent was like 50,000 yen a month. In those days, 50,000 yen a month was an astronomical price, but then again, I’m a gaijin. I was very rich. It was a 2-story new house. It was a nice place. Western style. It had like one-tatami room. But I remember the first day we went there and looked at the house, I says, “You want to live here?” She says, “Ok.” And she had a phobia. I had to laugh, but then again, I don’t know. You know, Japanese…in the genkan (foyer) was a toilet. You know with a door. And next to then toilet, wide open, was a pisser. You know a urinal, where you can pee. It was wide open. I mean anybody who comes in the house through the front door, they can see the urinal. And this must have drove this Miss Hokkaido crazy, because she covered that thing up and she wouldn’t let nobody even see it, that there was a urinal over there.. And I could never figure it out. You know they all take baths together, all that shit that they do together. Why worry about a urinal?

So, anyway, we rented the house. Paid the money.I’m still staying at the hotel. I could be living in the house that the grandmother built for the family, her family, for her daughter. I could have been living there. Sleeping there. Yeah, I was living on the street level. Anyway, I was living there. So we went there. Of course, I always had cars. You know, normal things there. So, the first day we rented the house. We paid all the money. And now we have to figure out how to furnish it. What to put in it. What not. She said “let’s go to the house and look at the house.” And we went to the house and looked at the house. It was in Kita-Sapporo. They got the ski-lifts up in that area there. So we go in, we open the door, we go inside. And the house, the garden outside, was not really completed yet. And she says, “Let’s break the house in.”

I said, “Of course. Good idea. How do you want to break the house in?”

She says, “Let’s fuck.”

Nice girl, you know.

And I said, “Good idea.”

And we proceeded to strip ourselves down nude and start fucking all over the living room. Which was the first room in the house. There was nothing in the house except two nude bodies fucking. Initiation, you know.

Q: You mean you did it in every different room?

A: No, we didn’t go to all the different rooms. There was too much trouble to move to another room… go to all the different rooms. But anyway, that was a pretty big house. That was about a 50 tsubo house. And much to my regret, I must say now that when I look at it all, and the sun has settled, or what do you call it, I was not the only guy that fucked her in that room. Even as my wife, I was not the only guy.

So anyway, I go back and forth. And one day, I came to that house and I don ‘t know, maybe ESP, what is it, and I said “Gee, there’s something funny about this place. There’s a feeling in this house. And I couldn’t figure it out. It was a feeling. There was something telling me that something happened in this house. And it happened to me yesterday, yesterday. So I started asking her, “What did you do here yesterday?” And, of course, the guilt complex came out. Man, she shit green. Like as if I knew. And I didn’t know, I just had that inner feeling that something happened in this house yesterday. And I was up in Hokkaido with my son. And my son was at the other house where the mother lived. And I just felt that there was something happened. So anyway, so, she finally confessed. That she shacked up with somebody in that house, yesterday.

And, of course, you can’t do that to me. I proceeded to beat the living piss out of her. And knocking her all over the fucking place. And then somehow or other, I fractured her skull, with either a punch or something. And, of course, she was out like a light. Gone. And I called my son up. And I says, “This fucking bitch. She butterflied on me yesterday.”

And he says, “So what’s new about that?” You know.

Cuz I gotta take her to the hospital because I just knocked the shit out of her. So I brought her to the hospital. Nakayama hospital or something like that. She had a fractured skull. Thin. Thin. But it was fractured. Anyway, she stayed in the hospital. And I left her there. And I got my son and we went back to Tokyo. Fuck it. You know. And that was the end of me and her.

Q: This was Fuse Akira? That was the guy?

A: No, this guy was…he worked in a host club. And you know I used to give her 1,700,000 yen a month, to spend, to enjoy life, give it in the bank, you know. And I put it in the bank and then she had to show me what she did with the money during the end of the month. Can you imagine that?

Q: Why that particular figure. Why not 2 million?

A: I don’t know. I can’t answer that. A million three-quarters. Anyway, she had a new car. Hey, you name it. I even bought her a sapphire mink coat. A beautiful fucking mink coat. And, anyway, I used to call her Cinderalla, because let me tell you, she was Cinderella. She had more fucking money that 20 people combined in Sapporo. And I didn’t care. I was in love. And I thought it was great. I thought she loved me. But then I found out she didn’t love me, she just loved sex. Not me, I had nothing to do with it. All I was was another pecker. And when I’m not there…..

So, of course a little questioning here and there and I find out that she goes to a host club and probably everybody in the host club had her.

Q: Did you go there?

A: No, I didn’t have to go.I know everybody in the hotel business and that shit. And, of course, I got reports that she was shacking up here, she was shacking up there. This, that and the other thing. I sez, I don’t care. No more. Because she and I are finished.

Anyway, I did beat one of her boy friends. And he sez to me, “I have no love for me. It’s just a business. My job is to fuck girls and I get paid for it. And the girls pay me. And it’s a good business.” He was a good-looking guy. You know he was honest about it see. I didn’t know how to react to such a thing. Because it’s hard to react to such…you know, because, he’s not wrong. And uh,…she’s wrong. He’s not the one who’s wrong. She went there and she decided that she wanted to shack up with somebody. So how can I blame him? But then of course I didn’t appreciate the fact that he knew that that was my wife. So I clobbered the son of a bitch. I beat the shit out of him. And, of course, you can’t live in Sapporo, because now I knew where he lived. So he did the worst thing in the world. He came to Tokyo. Can you imagine coming to Tokyo? My hometown? And he went to work at a place called Himeji. You don’t know Himeji, right. Himeji is owned and operated by a woman named Yamamoto. She is a book writer.

Q: Oh, yeah. She’s a poet. She won the Naoki-sho (literary prize) a couple of years ago. Yamaguchi is her name. Yamaguchi Yoko.

A: Right. And she had the Himeji, which is down in Nishi-Ginza. And I got a report that he was working there. So I went to see her. And I know here. And I guess she knows what kind of bastard I am. And she told the kid to disappear. Don’t ever come back to that place again. Because if Nick catches you in here, he’s gonna beat you up again. So that was the end of that guy. He disappeared from sight. And, of course, Yoko Yamaguchi, she comes in her quite often. She was….oh, I guess you can write it, fuck it…Noguchi, the pro-boxing promoter, that was one of his mistresses. Probably still is, today.

But my ex-wife, she was fascinated by Yamaguchi, because one day they showed in the Sapporo Shukan (Weekly) magazine, all the women that owned bars. And Yamaguchi’s picture was there in the white suit, white shirt, and a white tie and white pants. And I sez, I know she’s not a lesbian because she shacking up with Noguchi. And sure enough my wife says, I gotta have a club. I gotta have a bar. So,ok. I’ll buy you one.

Q: Miss Hokkaido.

A: So, I bought her one. I got her a place like that. And instantly. Without even batting an eye, she instantly says, “I got my wardrobe ready.” And I says “What’s your wardrobe?” And she takes out of white suit, with a white shirt and a white tie. She’s gonna copy Yamaguchi. Shit.

Anyway, that was a terrible, terrible mistake I made. She was 26 years younger than me. I thought it was love. But it was only sex. Sex. Sex. Sex.

Q: What about Fuse Akira? Is there a story there?

A: Oh, yes. Now what happened, she shacked up with him in the Royal Hotel. Or one of them. I imagine it might be the Royal Hotel. I can’t remember. But I got a phone call in Tokyo from the front desk manager or whatever you want to call it. And he says, “Your wife is upstairs in Room so-and-so with Fuse Akira.” Jesus Christ. That was like hitting me with a ton of bricks. Because everybody in town knew her. I went with her dancing and all the other ….I was a big…what do you call these guys who run around? Playboy? I even forgot what the fucking words are. But anyway. So I got the phone call. I called up the mother. Called up her house. Her mother says she sleeping. I said I know she’s sleeping. But she’s sleeping in the Royal Hotel in Room so-and-so with Fuse Akira. And, of course, the mother was “Oohhh.” So I got annoyed. But then again, I’m..fucking everything in Tokyo too. So sometimes I say to myself, “How can I criticize her when I’m doing the same fucking thing.”

So anyway, I brought her back to Tokyo to live in my big, big house. My 10,000 square foot home with only 4 bedrooms. And I said, “I don’t appreciate what you did. I think it’s wrong. But love is strong. And we sort of made peace. Uhmm? As, you know…And I got this guilty conscience because everyday I’m sleeping with a different broad. Or when I’m lucky, 2 broads in one day. Anyway, so I had a Red Opel again. And I had a chauffeur. And of course I had a Cadillac. But the Cadillac, I used….my private house. I had a lot of land there. I could have parked 20 automobiles. I had a swimming pool. Everything. So she calls the chauffeur. The chauffeur picks her up and takes her someplace. And she tells the chauffeur to wait. So the chauffeur waits outside. And what’s she do? She had a sex meeting with Fuse Akira. In Tokyo. With my car and my chauffeur. The Red Opel. You know, how crazy can you get?

Q: Parks it outside Akira’s house?

A: Yeah. And the kid reads the name on the wall. Fuse Akira. Or Akira fuse. Which ever way they write it. Or what ever name he used because he’s a popular …he’s a Korean too, by the way. Anyway, I think he’s a Korean. Anyway, when she got through, she came in the car, she went back to the house, and the chauffeur reports to Miss Koizumi that he’s positive that she shacked up with Fuse Akira.

Q: The chauffeur tells your second wife?

A: “Sugoi Tomodachi” (Great Friends). He used that expression. So, of course, my ex-wife couldn’t wait to tell me.You know, tell me what a bitch she was. She called her a “Young Cunt.” “You divorced me to marry a young cunt.” Anyway, that woman is now 42, my wife is 56. There’s 14 years difference between them. She calls her a “young cunt.” So, of course, I got the report, I went to my house. And I says to her, “What did you do? You went to Fuse Akira’s house. You shacked up with him again. You used my car. My chauffeur. You used my telephones. I got a telephone operators who writes down every fucking thing that’s done on the telephone. Cuz I got my own switchboard. How the hell can you do such a thing like that where everybody in my company knows what you’ve done?”

I sez, “I can not forgive you.”

I sez, “I’m not gonna hit you. Because hitting you don’t mean nothing. I put you in the hospital the last time. Don’t mean nothing. So I sez, “Go upstairs and cut your wrists. Commit suicide because that’s the only way. You’re gonna go out of this house in a box. No other way. You’re never gonna get in that car again. You’re never gonna go out and shack up with anybody again. You’re gonna be a dead woman. So go upstairs and kill yourself.

Q: What was that. She can’t go out again..

A:You can’t go out again unless she goes out in a box. She goes upstairs and kills herself. She don’t. I’m gonna do it. Because every…I have maybe over 100 employees. By that time, before you can hang up a telephone, everybody in the company will know that that my wife is now shacking up in Tokyo, with Fuse Akira. Who doesn’t know it? How do I stand with employees? How do I stand with anybody? You know.

So anyway, so she went upstairs and she proceeded to cut her wrists. Both hands.Both wrists. And my daughter Patricia came home. And I’d say that girl, she might have been about 23 that time. So that would be 18 years go. My daughter was about 20. So my daughter came home.And she said to me, “Where’s Mayumi?”

Q: What year was this?

A: 18 years ago. I met and married her in Showa 42 nen. That means I divorced Miss Koizumi in Showa 42 nen….So I told my daughter she’s upstairs cutting her wrists. And my daughter thought I was crazy because I said it in a nonchalant manner. And my daughter went upstairs and then my daughter came running downstairs. She says, “She cut her wrists. There’s blood all over the rug.”

I said, “Omigod, my poor rugs. Goddamn it. Those fucking rugs were very expensive. Those rugs.”

So she says, “What are you going to do?”

I sez “Nothing. Let her die.”

“No you can’t let her die.”

I sez, “Why not? I didn’t kill her. She did it herself. You saw her wrists. She cut her own wrists.”

So anyway, my daughter called the hospital, or called Dr. Aksenoff. I don’t know who the hell she called. But anyway, the ambulance came and took her away.

And the bitch lived. Son of a bitch.

So, of course, she lived. She went back to Sapporo.

I gave her a maid. I gave her that big money I was giving her. And that was the end of her. And we just drifted apart. And I wanted a divorce.And she sez “Yes, of course.” Cuz I ain’t gonna sleep with her no more. And I ain’t gonna do nothing with her no more. I’m finished with her.

She sez, “Give me 30 million yen.”

And I said, “Fuck you. I ain’t about to give you 30 million yen.”

She sez, “But you gave your wife a lot of money?”

I says, “Yeah, because I was wrong, I wanted to get married. I wanted to get divorced. Now you want to get divorced. You want to get divorced from me?”

She sez “Yes.Give me 30 million yen.”

I said, “No, you gotta pay me.” And you know that was the biggest fucking joke in the world. Whoever heard of a girl paying a guy? For a divorce.

You know. And I said, “You’re gonna be my wife until you die. Because I will never divorce you. I will never pay you. So, if you want a divorce, you pay me.”

Anyway, the situation stayed status quo like that. I never bothered with her. I ignored her completely. She was gone. And I wouldn’t give her a divorce because I ain’t about to pay her.

Now, I got pressure from Miss Koizumi, who, also I was shacking up with everyday and every other day. And in between girls and all that other shit. Now, Yae starts pushing me. Divorce her. I sez “Why should I divorce her? She’s young. Why should I divorce her? She’s the only one that can suffer. I don’t suffer because I don’t give a fuck whether I’m married or divorced. You know, you and I are together. She says, “No, I don’t want to stay with you unless you marry me. Now I got pressure. From that same fucking woman that never stopped giving me pressure. Anyway, so. I got the pressure. Divorce her. Divorce her. So finally, I said OK. And I decided OK, I’m gonna get divorced. So I went up to Sapporo or I used the telephone. Anyway, I got in touch with her, and I agreed to give her a divorce. She was very, very happy. And she was thinking in terms of receiving 30 million yen. But I said, “I don’t pay you nothing.. But I gave you 1,550,000 yen to open a bar. And I want you to pay me 1,550,000 yen.” Now that’s a lot of fucking nickels and dimes.

She says, “I ain’t got no money.”

I sez, “You got a bar. I bought you a bar. My money bought it.” I said, “You want a divorce, I want my money back.”

She sez “No, you want a divorce. You give me 30 million yen.”

I said, “Fuck it. Forget about it.”

“I give you an divorce. You pay me back.”

So she agreed to pay me back. I got her mother to sign a piece of paper that they would pay me back. And we go to the Kaitei Saiban (Katei Saiban). And we get a divorce. See.

So, the first payment I got was 400,000 yen. The Divorce Contract. And every month I got 40,000 yen until she paid me the whole thing, the remaining 1.2 million, which was 30 months.

I know Kaitei Saiban so well, I been there 3 times.

Q: Katei Saiban.

A: I always pronounce the words wrong. Because nobody corrects me. And if they do correct me, I don’t remember it anyway. So anyway, so, the divorce went through. I got 400,000 yen cash & every month she sent 40,000. And the money went to my company. And I never saw her. And I made her pay.

So I think I’m then only foreigner or anything, the woman paid for a divorce.

Not big money, but to her it was big money.

No matter how much money I sent to her. I looked in the fucking chokin (saving account deposit book) and there was no money in it…5,000 take out. 10,000. 20,000 take out. Of course, she’s buying sex. Good-looking broad. She didn’t have to buy no sex..

But, anyway. I guess she’s very rich now. It’s always the same story. In the beginning they give it away. Then they get paid for it. I don’t think she’s reached the stage where she’s buying it back.

Q:How old is she now? She was born Showa 23. Now it’s Showan 64. So she’s 41 now. 42 maybe.But I haven’t seen her. I used to go visit her, even after we separated. Say hello. I can’t carry grudges forever. And, of course, I always had the object of fucking all my 3 wives in one day. I always had that object….I always got 2. I couldn’t get 3. Always one would balk. Son of a bitches. But anyway. When my wife reads that part, she’s gonna shit.

Do you know what she had the nerve to tell me? “Don’t you dare talk to him about me.”

Talk about a guilty conscience. The son of a bitch.

Do you know what she did they other night? Driving me home. I told her what a shithead her sister was. Her sister works for me in Chuo Rinkan. Stupid fucking broad that she is. She’s a nice girl, but we’re talking in the business world. In the business world she’s a zilch. My wife got mad and stepped on the fucking gas, mind you I’m on a small road going past Shibuya, and then slammed on the brakes. Somehow or other I’m lucky. I almost went flying through the fucking window. I’m in the dead man’s seat, you know. And, of course, I laughed. I sez “You can’t kill me.” And she was so fucking mad.

So that was Miss Hokkaido.

(HOKKAIDO LAND)

Q: Now how in the hell did you wind up in court…we got your pig. Your F-1 pig picture.Producing at a rate of a thousand a year. Just machine gunning them out of your ranch there.

A: Now, that’s not a big operation. There’s a guy here in Hirosaka, Hiratsuka…It’s a word like SODA. A 4 letter word, but I don’t know the 3^rd letter. He produces a 100,000 pigs a year.Jesus Christ, you know what kind of money that is? That’s a lot of money. Each pig is today, a pig price of about 45,000 yen. So when you multiply 100,000 x 45,000 yen, you got a lot of money. But, of course, he’s got a big operation. And Uncle Same was very nice to him because he imports feed from the States. He’s a big operation. I went to that man to buy pigs. He wouldn’t sell me a fucking thing. Imagine that? One pig he wouldn’t sell me. I wanted to buy pigs. I wanted to go into the pig business. I was up in Hokkaido. Wouldn’t sell me pigs.

Q: Potential competition.

A: Well, of course, I’m the type if something goes good, I don’t take the money out. I keep putting more money in it. And let it keep going better and better and better. But he wouldn’t sell me a fucking pig. And I went to the American Embassy and asked them to help. And they said they can’t help me. The man. It’s his pigs.

Q: So, how did you wind up in court over the land…

A: Well, I got the pig operation going. And the man I bought the land from…of course, I can’t transfer the property to my name because I’m a gaijin. A foreigner. A foreigner is not allowed to own farmland. So I left it in the farmers name. And I never had no trouble with him. And then there’s a lot of rules in Japan that automatically make the property mine. One is that if you sit on a piece of property for ten years. And if the owner doesn’t complain, it’s yours. And if you sit on it for 20 years. It’s even more yours. So, I’ve been on the property over 20 years. And I’m gonna go to court. And then I find out I can’t go to court to get the property because I gotta be a Japanese. So I sez, what the hell. I’ll be a Japanese. So that’s one reason why I became a Japanese.

Q: You mean all the while you thought you owned this land, you thought…

A: I know it’s not in my name, but its my right. I’m on the land. If you sit on the land and you put a building on the land, you are the operator of that land. Regardless of how big it is. It’s your Eminent Domain. I don’t know how you would say it. Squatter’s rights? So I got that right. I’m on that land. I got my barns on it. I got my private home on it. Then government gave me 1600 tsubo of land to put my private home on. Most farmers are only allowed 300 tsubo. For farmhouse.

Q: I thought you bought 500 acres?

A: I gave it back.

Q: How did you get this land then?

A: This one I bought. This one I wanted to buy. The other one were cooperatives.

Q: Well, how’d you get this land in the first place? This is the same area?

A: This is Oshamambe. And when I was sitting in this hotel, this Farmer Brown, this Kobayashi came over and asked me to…

Q: So it was his land.

A: No. no. Slowly. So I sez ok. I don’t know. I do want to own a farm.Own a ranch. I want a place.And he was we have, our 5 farmers, own 200 Chobu. And we will sell you the 200 chobu. Now, we’re talking about nickels and dimes. Not big money, you know. Anway, so I sez, well, let me see the land. And I looked it over. I looked at all the land. And I picked this land, because when you…the farmer don’t like to put a house on the top of a hill. It’s exposed to the elements. But we are different.people. We like to see a view. We like to oversee what we got. Anyway me. And I picked the land that had a little rise on it. And it’s a nice piece of property as far as view is concerned. Cuz if I look to my left from the place where my house is now, I see the city of Mururan (sp?)…it’s before Tomakomai. It’s a seaport. So from my house window, I could see Mururan on that side. Which is to my left. I guess you’d say 270 degrees. If you look from a compass, if I’m heading zero. And to my right, I see the city of Mori. You never heard of Mori. It’s a mountain with a big saddle in it. So I got this tremendous view. This is all bay. And the nearest point from outside of the bay is 20 kilometers. So you can imagine what I can see from a clear day. So I picked this property. And this one was owned by Mr. Kambara. And it was only supposed to be 14 chobu. And I bought 14 chobu. And it turned out to be that it was 12 chobu. But anyway, who cares, you know. So I bought that land. I picked that land and I paid for it. And in the meantime I’m paying for all the other lands…until I found out that I’m paying for all the other lands.

Q: But you bought the land and you put the house and the barn on it.

A: No wait a minute. Be careful. We’ve used the word “bought” a little too freely.

Q: You just said “I picked the land and I bought it.”

A: I picked the land and technically I bought it. But I can’t transfer it to my name because I’m a foreigner. So I bought the land, but it’s in the original owner’s name. And he owned the government money.Which I agreed to pay. And the contract says that the land can not be transferred to me, until later. Later. It’s already 30 years ago and its still fucking later. But anyway.

Q: That’s what it just says? “later?”

A: Yeah, later. I think it says 18 months later. I hate to say it, but anyway. So, I wound up being the so-called owner of the land. And I put barns on it and I put a private home on it. And I built a house for the farmer.

Q: What was the name of the guy who owned it?

A: Kambara…..Mr. Kambara is probably the only man that I met, or you ever met or anybody ever met who cannot read and write Japanese. Did you ever meet anybody who could not read and write Japanese?

Q: Never a Japanese.

A: Anway, he don’t want to be a farmer, because he was a kid during the war and he was forced to work on a farm. And he never had a chance to go to school. Not that it means everybody who goes to school comes out smart. He was stupid and he didn’t go to school. And if he would have went to school, he still would have come out stupid.

Stupid as far as reading and writing was concerned. And other than that, he’s not stupid. So I wound up with that property. And I put my buildings on it. And the other properties, I bought a bulldozer.And the homestead law in Japan is like in America, because when MacArthur came, MacArthur took all the land away from the Tokyo owners. And the only way you can own a piece of land under MacArthur’s redevelopment program, is you had to live on the land. So everybody in Tokyo who owned land in Hokkaido. Or any absentee owner.MacArthur just wiped him out. But that’s history. So I think what they did, they got a map and they just made square in it, each one about 10 or 12 chobu or something like that. And they gave it to the farmers. On a I-pay-you-later-for-the-land. And, of course, through the shuffling, some people wound up buying other people’s land. And some people wound up with 40 chobu.

Q: SCAP gave it to the farmers.

A: All they had to do was live on it. And he gave them money, and the government gave them money, so they could build houses and they can start a farming program. And I’d say that 10% never did it. Anyway, Mr. Kambara didn’t do it. But Mr. Kambara lived in a house. On the land. That he had a few cows in the bottom of the house. He had a horse. And he had cow shit all over the place and horseshit all over the place. And he was living there. And you couldn’t sit in a fucking room in the house because the stink from the barn, was right in the house. And he had no electricity. And he had no water. And for his room decoration, he had pasted newspapers. How poor can you get? So when I saw him living conditions and what he was living in.

Q: He had 1 horse, 1 cow?

A: He had one horse, 2 cows, some shit like that. He had no cultivated land. Nothing. And the cows would just go out and eat whatever they can. I don’t know how the hell then guy survived. But anyway, I felt sorry for him. He had a wife and a couple of kids. No matter how poor you are, your pecker still stands up and you can make babies. So I gave him a salary and told him to get lost. So I paid him every month, hoping to god that he would do something with his life. And at one part of the game, the years that went by, …I should say another thing before we get to that…I had two bulldozers. And I sent all my farmers to bulldozer school. So that they can learn how to run a bulldozer. And they learned how to run a bulldozer. And the first graceful act they did to me, was they wiped out my topsoil. So now, I got little slopes but no topsoil. They were learning how to use the bulldozer. And they learned the trade so well that they buried one of my bulldozers in sort of a sinkpot. And we had to call the bulldozer company and bring a couple of more bulldozers up, plus mine, to pull it out. They buried it in the mud.

Q: What’d you say they did to the topsoil?

A: They scraped it. They learned how to use a bulldozer. They take all the topsoil off and it blows away. And its gone, and all you got on the bottom is clay. And nothing grows on clay…..Man. I’m a lucky guy….As a matter of fact, you could still go on that property today and there is no topsoil. We’re talking 30 years later.

Q: These are the four farmers

A: Oh, man. I sent them to bulldozer school. I paid their fees. I gave them money to live. And I got paid back, my cow dies, they bury the bulldozer. The bulldozer is in such bad condition from laying in the mud, I mean you couldn’t even see the seat where you sit in. That’s how deep it was buried. So anyway, I sent the bulldozer back to Komatsu. Now I owned one bulldozer and one tractor.

(Pause. Checking handwritten notes)

A: You gotta picture me as a Pagliacci. A fucking clown with a white suit and black spots. That’s my uniform.

But I treated them good.

(talks with waiter)

Q: The farmers don’t sound too swift.

A: But Mr. Kambara was the dumbest one of all, because he couldn ‘t read or write Japanese. And he became the richest one of all of them. And because intelligence is son fucking important. He is now the poorest one of all of them. Can you imagine thatThis guy wound up buying 20 bulldozers. He asked me to buy him a helicopter so he move…he’s a lumberman now. He cuts lumber. He was cutting lumber. What do you call him. A lumberjack? You know with the big chain saws and the bulldozers bringing these logs down from the mountaintop. And he was willing to buy a helicopter that could pick up the log and bring it to the truck. Instead of slide it down the bottom of the hill. And he wound up with land and he had 2 private homes in Oshamambe. He was really a success story. And he couldn’t read and write. Then he got involved with my interpreter. And Mr. Kambara lost everything. He lost his bulldozers. He lost his two private homes. He had acreages of land. He lost it all. I tell you. I shouldn’t feel bad. Some people are worse off than I am.

What else would you like to know? We got sidetracked.

Q: You went to court and you got your land back.

A: All right, so now. After all these years, I finally qualified to go to court. Because now I’m a Japanese. I’m a resident of Hokkaido. The Farm Association don’t want to give me a license to become a farmer because I’m a foreigner, even though I’m a Japanese citizen.

Q: The fact that you’re becoming Japanese meant that you could legally own that land?

A: No, it means that you can legally go to court and fight for that land..I could be a legal owner. I’m a Japanese now and I live in Oshamambe.

Q: So this guy, Kambara had the contract. He had the lease in his name even though the property was transferred to you.

A: The property was in his name and then I sent up my interpreter (& ex-GM) Mr. Fujita. My interpreter Fujita went up there, because he told me…..you know, I imagine this is a long, long story. It interwinds itself. Anway, we’ll just start it.

Fujita went up and told me that Mr. Kamabara was untrustworthy and you shouldn’t trust him. Mind you, the kettle calling the pot black. And he will go up to Hokkaido for me. I already fired him once.Which, one of these days, we’ll get to that conversation. And he wanted to go up to Hokkaido and take care of the property for the company. And do this and do that. And do all these things. And he was on my back every fucking day. “You can’t trust Kambara. You can trust me. I’m like your father.” Anything to get inside the door. If I’d have asked him to pull down his pants and stick a dick in his ass he’d have said yes. And I’m the one who got shafted, not him.

So I sent him up to Hokkaido and he was a retired employee of mine for 20,000 yen a month. Which he blackmailed me in to giving him. But anyway, like I said, so he went up there and he said to me, he wanted a hundred thousand a month to do the job. He’s getting 20,000 yen a month retirement pay in Tokyo, deposited to his account.

Q: Fujita?

A: Fujita. And Fujita spoke Chinese, English and Japanese. Fluently. Anyway, he died at 83 years old about 2 years ago. He was born in 1903. Anyway, so ok, get out of my hair, send him up to Hokkaido. And I gave him a budget of 100,000 yen a month. This is in Showa 43 nen. (1968) And his job was to get the property. Qualify as a farmer. Qualify as a resident. And then get the property and put it in the company name. And In sent him a 100,000 yen a month. Finally he complained. Send me 600,000 twice a year. So I says “OK, go to the bank and tell them to give you 600,000. And I will make a deal with the bank.” So I made a deal with the bank that I borrowed 600,000 yen. I gave them a promissory note dated 6 months later. They give me the cash. He takes the cash. I honor the note. Silly fucking thing. But anyway. It was all right, because it’s documents that go through a bank and it protects me later on. And, in case of trouble, I got bank documents. So I went through that routine.And in Showa 46 nen, we finally got the property transfer. The man wanted a million yen for transfer fees. This Kambara. But Fujita says I’ll give you two million. How do you like spending my money. And I said why should you pay for the money when we already paid for the land. 2 & 3 times already, for Christs Sakes, you know.

So anyway, he made a contract with the man that the property would be transferred to his private name, instead of the company, and he told me that the company was buying the land for a million yen, and we sent a million yen. No, we didn’t do that. I carried a million yen up to Hokkaido. And I put 600,000 yen in the bank and spent the other 400,000 yen enjoying life, fucking broads and drinking. And all the other things that go with the good life. But I was very smart. I put it in the bank. I didn’t give it to him. I just deposited it in the bank. And he was smarter than me. Because when I found out what happened, he owned the land. Not me. Nice guy.

So now I’m annoyed. And I can’t do nothing about it because I’m an American. So I had to bide my time, and bide my time, and bide my time.

Q: He bought this land and put it in his name..

A: My money….but, he couldn’t take the property and the housing and the barns. Because they were registered in Nicolas’ enterprise company. He couldn’t move that. But he could move the property name from one farmer to him.. So I went up to Hokkaido ad I pressed the Nokyo Inkai, Nokyo Inkai is the chief of the Farm Association. And I insisted that Mr. Fujita be given a farmer’s license. And I got him a farmer’s license. So now Fujita’s got a farmer’s license. And he lived there two or three years so he’d qualify. And instead of doing it for the company, he’d put the property under his name. And I didn’t have , shall we say, nothing to fall back on.. I should have had, what do you callem “safety catches?” I don’t know, I can’t think of the word. But anyway. So I was virtually bareassed. No loopholes. He got me. So, in the meantime, I’m having trouble with my money in Tokyo. And I had a tie up with the taxi company so that dovetailed…so the property wound up in Mr. Fujita’s name, and it took me, 46 nen…I became a Japanese about 8 years ago. 57 nen. (1983) So it took me about 14 years to become a Japanese. But I couldn’t do nothing until 20 years passed, or something like that. So in Showa 57, I filed court action to get the land into my company name. In the meantime, Mr. Fujita filed a cross suit, demanding his retirement pay, which, of course, I stopped when I found out what he did.

Anyway, after a few years, the court ended. And I won. A hollow victory, but I won.

Q: In Showa when?

A: About 2 years ago. (1987) No, no, no, it ended about a year ago. Anyway, it’s such a complicated legal decision, that even my interpreter who worked for Keishicho (police HQ) for 35 years as a chief of interpreting section, this guy that I use, Mr. Mogami…he now works for the JCIA,…I gave him my…and I asked him “Can you translate this thing” And he’s a great translator. His English is better than mine. His spelling is better. His sentence structure. Everything is better than me. But he can’t interpret. Pencil & paper, he’s terrific….I tell you…Yesterday, I used him as an interpreter. He couldn’t understand. Maybe he’s getting old. So it turned out that Mr. Fujita’s claim was 100% discarded by the court. And, of course, before the court decision came out, Mr. Fujita died. I regret that I didn’t kill him. I don’t think I got the balls to kill anybody. I talk about it. I think about it. But how the fuck do you do it in this god damn country?.

Q: So you got the land back?

A: Well, yes. Now. His case against me, he lost 100%. My case against him, I won. A hollow victory. It means I can’t take the land out of his name or his son’s name who has inherited it. But I could use the property free forever. Figure that one out.

Q: Can you sell it?

A: No, it’s not mine. I can live on it. I can plant. I can do anything I want with the land. I can’t mortgage it. I can’t sell it. And it’s just a matter of time when I die or something happens and these people will go back to the courts and say that the person who won the right to use the land is dead and everybody else is dead so we want the right to…and, of course, I’ll get wiped out. Naturally.

Q: OK. That’s enough.

(End Interview Session)

(WIVES: MISS HOKKAIDO & YAE)

Q: I need dates of marriages and divorces.

A: Forgot book.

Q: I really wanna meet Miss Hokkaido.

A: Well, good luck. Go to Hokkaido.

Q: You got her number for me. Call her for me?

A: Naw, I just know that she lives in a certain place. I mean the mother lives.

Q: I can’t go up there w/o proper introduction. This is Japan. What better person to make the introduction than you.

A: Except…I know where the mother lives. Cuz I think I paid for the fucking house that they built. But anyway, that’s beside the point. And I know it’s near the juvenile jail. And I know its….well, you go from the back of Sapporo. How do you say that?

Q: I don’t know.

A: You know they got a mountain resort there. You know “onsen.” It’s in the back of Sapporo. So you gotta come from Ku-chan/. (gives directions, 24^th avenue, 24^th street)

Q:But your wife, your present wife Yae-chan, she has no objection to talking….She said she would.

A: Yeah, she’ll talk to you. She’s got a better memory than I do. She was here the other night talking about people that I don ‘t even remember. She’s got a good memory for who comes here and who we know. Things that happen. I can’t remember shit.

Q: I’d like to talk to her next week on Friday. Say about 3 o’clock or 3:30?

A: You’re gonna get caught. You’re gonna get caught. You’re gonna get caught on Golden Week.

Q: That’s the 3^rd, isn’t it. That’s a holiday. We should wait.

A: You better not try to catch her on Golden Week. She’s gonna go to her restaurant in Yokota. 3,4,5.

Q: You said she comes from a samurai family.

A: She comes from the Koizumi samurai family from Gumma. That’s of course Japanese history. And I think the, you gotta read your Japanese history, ….Takasaki, Maebashi, Ohta, something like that…

Q: What did her family think about her taking up with a gaijin back then?

A: Well, it was easy because her sister married an American before me. That’s the guy that’s the sherriff of Monterey.

Q: They didn’t object to that?

A: Well, in those days, it was very hard. The father and mother was dead. And if you can marry a gaijin at that time, you got a guaranteed income. You gotta think that way too, you know. So she married a guy that was probably a PFC or a corporal. Raymond Malpica…who, by the way, is a buddy, buddy of Colin Powell. They went into the army together. They lived in the same streets of New York City. He’s a friend of Colin Powell. He called up Colin Powell, the other day. Everyone was shocked. He picked up the phone and called Colin Powell. “Just tell him this is Sergeant Malpica.” And the guy spoke to him. And you know one of the son-in-laws is a Stealth Fighter….the war that America lost in the Gulf. Remember I told you that’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen. Bush is gonna be. His fucking rating is gonna go so far down. Trying to get people to assassinate Sadaam Hussein and yet he, the other presidents all tried Castro and they all failed. And the word is that a Jew is gonna do the assassination….Bullshit. (garbled) That son of a bitch is circumcised. I think they check everybody’s pecker.

Q: That’s right. At the airport. When you show your passport, you got to whip it out. Or else they won’t let you in.

A: You’re kidding. I believe it though, because boy.

(Note: Yae continues 6 lines down)

(YAE)

Q: Wait, one more question about Yae. Was she living alone when you met her? What was her story? Was she living with her uncle or something?

A: Gee, I can’t answer that question…Her brother-in-law Raymond Malpica introduced me to her. So she could have been living with her sister. But she was a kid then. Let’s she, she is 58 now. That was 36. 56. 35 years later. She was 21. She is the most successful woman in Japan. Bar none.

Q: Really?

A: Oh my god. She’s got every fucking thing you can think of. She owns Yokota. She owns my other two restaurants. She’s gotta be worth…of course, most like, you wanna say I’m worth about 100 million dollars. I’d say if I was worth 100 million dollars, Yae chan would be worth 90 million of it. And not only that, she knows how to carry herself. She know how to talk. She knows. She knows.

She can be very vicious too. I thought she was only vicious to me, but the other day she explained, she showed her vicious to people…she went to a funeral and they had this Nippon Taxi Company in the middle of the place\ with the funeral flower and my flower was at the end, not even under a shed and the rain was going on it, and she called in the shacho (president) yesterday, the day before, and she read the riot act. God what she didn’t tell that guy. Boy, she reminded him that I was the first man to buy Gouda Cheese from him and that he used to deliver it by bicycle. Now he owns his own building and he’s a big wheel and he gave Nihon Kotsu preferential treatment at the funeral. And boy I mean, she didn’t stop. She went on for at least one hour. That son of a bitch was standing at attention, bowing and bowing. And I got my camera and I’m trying to take a picture. The fucking camera wasn’t working. I had the batteries in backwards. Son of a gun.

So she can be very very outspoken. She remembers this and she remembers that. And she really laid it into that guy. And I got to admit, he deserved it.

Q: What guy?

A: The guy that supplied us Gouda cheese in the beginning. Name is Fumiya.

Q: He was running this funeral?

A: He died. He died and she went to the funeral.

Q: Who’d she read the riot act to?

A: The new president. The son or whatever the hell he is. Because they put her, you know the flower (wreath) you send to a funeral. They put it in a bad location and the rain came on it. And our enemy Nippon Taxi (Nippon Kotsu), they put their flower right in the middle. So then guy says “What can I do to make up for this?” She almost said, “Jump out the fucking window.” They’re thinking in terms of money. You know Japanese. She says, “Don’t you ever think that way.” She went to the funeral. You know they give you a omiyage (present/souvenir) to take back. She took it back and then she called the shacho (prez.), the funeral was just finished, I guess. And she told the guy to come over. He came over and she gave him the fucking presents that they give you at the funeral. And boy, she went right at him. I mean. I thought I was the only guy to get that kind of criticism. But I’m glad that somebody else got it for a change. I felt good about it while I was listening to her. Read the riot act, I mean boy. She says “Remember this time. Remember that time. Remember this time. Remember that time.” Jesus.

Q: What was the present?

A: Head bowed down low.

Q: No, what was the present?

A: The what?

Q: The funeral present.

A: I don’t know. It was in a shopping bag. It was a big bag. She wouldn’t even open it. She wouldn ‘t even look at it.

Q: How old was this president here, this guy?

A: He’s got black and white hair. So he’s got to be in his 40’s. 50’s. The old man died.

Q: Was he a relative?

A: No, the son. Or the general manager or something like that.

Q: So Fumie used to sell gouda cheese.

A: He’s the only guy, you know, I found gouda cheese. Checked it out and he did ‘t really have gouda cheese. He was supplying me with a few little items. So I told him to go get gouda cheese for me and he got gouda cheese for me. Cause Nozawa is the importer. But Nozawa is not a distributor. You know the Japanese chain system.

Q: So you helped him make a lot of money.

A: Oh, Christ almighty. He owns a big building now in Nihonbashi. Started out with a fucking bicycle. Delivered cheese by bicycle. Can you imagine that?

Q: He get that rich just by selling cheese?

A: Hey, yeah. I was a big cheese buyer. Well, of course, everybody wants to copy Nicolas. And all my cooks know what I’m using, right. And they all disappeared and work other places, other places, other places, other places. To give you an idea, Mr. Pizza uses about 20 tons of cheese a month. And that’s crap cheese. It ain’t 100% natural cheese. So I imagine the cheese imports in this country must be extremely high.

So I told her change. Get another importer. Or else, import yourself. It’s AA. The only thing wrong when you import yourself you got to import a container load. What the fuck to you do with a container load? Cheese spoils. So I told her. Go on a revenge tour. Sell it for exact cost. And you’ll fuck up the whole market.

Q: What else did you do for him that was so good?

A: Oh, I used to buy thousands and thousands and thousands of cases of tomatoes from him. To make tomato sauce. Oh, he was a big supplier. Cuz I didn’t want to bother looking for this and looking for that. So when I needed something, he’d get it, he get it. I used to buy one year of whole tomatoes at a time. One year. And he’d warehouse it. And deliver it to me. That’s a big order when you buying 30-40,000 cases of fucking tomatoes at one time. But you can do that with tomatoes, because they’re in a can. Cheese has got a 2 or 3 month life span.

Q: How did you buy the cheese? What are the units? How do you describe that?

A: Cheese just comes in a 20 kilo box.

Q: How much would you order from them?

A: A ton at a time. 2 tons at a time. I still think we use over two tons a month. Like every month we’d order 2 tons, 3 tons, but then before, we had a big restaurant. That was grossing a million yen a day. Everyday. You know the volume that place had. Jesus Christ. When you think a pizza is 150 yen.

(MARRIAGE & DIVORCE RECORD)(YAE)

(YAE)

A: I was looking through these books and I saw Joe Camero’s name in there. And it’s funny how you mention Joe Camero.

Q: Joe Camero?

A: Joe Camero C-a-m-e-r-o. Just like the car.

Q: What was he. Mexican or Puerto Rican?

A: I thought he was Japanese.

Q: Really.

A: Camero could be a Japanese name.

Q: It was written in katakana (in the Japanese gangster encyclopaedia).

A: I know but it could be.

Q: No Japanese has to be kanji, by law.

A: How do you write I George?

Q; That’s a stage name.

A: His real name is Ishikawa….

Q: Camero that’s not a Japanese family name….OK go ahead with marriage and divorce records.

A: OK. I married Yoshiko Iizumi, August 14, 1947. And for your reference, this was also shown on the Don Rather show. Remember that came out when I was on it? They showed that clipping of me marrying. Pathe News. Who was the guy….big man…

Q: Murrow? Cronkite.

A: No. What’s Bob Simon. Would CBS be Pathe News?

Q: No different company.

A: Anyway, they used the Pathe News to show me walking down the staircase of the American Embassy in Yokohama when I got married. OK.

Q: Down staircase?

A: Out. The building.They showed it when the Emperor died. Then I got divorced on June 6, 1957. Then I married Yae Koizumi, my present wife, December 17, 1964. And I divorced her June 25^th 1968. Shit. I was only married to her for four years. She got so fucking rich in those four years. Jesus Christ. But, of course, from 1957 to 1964, I really enjoyed life. That was when my restaurant was really booming. And I had a mistress in between. Shall we write that down? OK. Her name was Yoshiko Takaishi….

Q: That’s the famous Yoshiko, the cause of all the …

A: And I put her father in the pachinko business…in Meguro, the hakumon dollar (million dollar) pachiniko…Now, they don’t talk to me. They’re very rich. I opened the pachinko place for them. Nobody knew what pachinko was.

Q: But surely pachinko started before…

A: A little bit before, not much more. Cuz I was going with Yoshiko from 1952 and she was only 17. So she was born in Showa, maybe 35 nen. I mea 1935. Beautiful fucking broad. But anyway. Life is like that. So then I got…Yae-chan gave me such a bad time that I decided to marry somebody else. Then I married Miss Hokkaido. Her name was Mayumi Hori., I married her July 18, 1968. …which would be exactly 24 days after. Course I left her pretty soon, but we were legally divorced February 17, 1975. I let her wait all those fucking years before I gave her a divorce. And then you could see I married Yae again May 2, 1975. Less than three months later, I married her.

Q: Did you ask her to marry you?

A: She wanted to get married. I didn’t want to get divorced. I just let then situation sit as it is. “You gotta marry me.” “You gotta marry me.” “You gotta marry me. I’ll give you all your property back. I’ll give you everything that I took from you. ” And you know what happened? She took more. Japanese name.

Q: Is that what she said, really, “You gotta marry me?”

A: Of course. “You gotta marry me.” “You gotta marry me.”

Q: “I’ll give you back…”

A: Well, you know, “Everything is yours. And this, that and the other thing.” She even says it today. Hey, everything is…you know. Except the other day she said, “The only reason why you got money is because I give it to you.” How do you like that for fucking balls. Anyway, that’s the marriage dates

Potential Tokyo Underworld movie – Nick Zappetti Edited Interview Sample E

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Potential Tokyo Underworld movie – Nick Zappetti Edited Interview Sample E

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