"japan," the metaphor

The following is a hastily assembled list of ten classic stereotypes concerning Japan that I am often asked about [*], or just assumed everyone already assumed. I won't be linking to any factual proof because I'm tired of being at the office, and my experience alone should suffice.

May the glorious DI debunk-athon begin.


10. The Japanese language can be mastered within a few seasons of Naruto
No, it can't.
I'd write more here, but I'd risk wearing out the m, o, r, and n keys on my keyboard.

9. Japanese people never divorce
One in every four couples in 2007 would kindly like to ask if your source was a microfilm from the city library basement.

8. Japanese people never sue
While civil disagreements may have been closed privately in the past, Japanese people love money just like any other country's citizens. It's just gotten easier as of late. The skin of my teeth is most recent proof of this. So of course they'll sue, you naive bimbo.

7. Japanese politicians are notoriously efficient
Careful not to confuse your stereotype with Japan's last two prime ministers, who are both still collecting unemployment checks after prematurely throwing in the towel. Something about a scandal. Or three.

6. All Japanese people are thin and healthy
Also not true. Ever been to Hawaii? The Japanese people there are hu---ge.

5. Japan is very clean
At a street level, yes, it is. But where do those 50 billion annual tons of trash go? Definitely not forming a conga line to the incinerators, or waltzing on the ships to China, that's for sure.

4. Japanese people struggle with "l" and "r" when speaking English
Actually, not a stereotype because they still do. All the time, and it's totally hirarious.

3. Japan is still the "future"
Faltering domestic technology? Disposable prime ministers? Concrete asphyxiation? Economic bankruptcy? "Urban heat island" effect? Baby, the future ain't what it used to be.

2. All Japanese girls are hot
Um, no. Not since Crocs or burlap made it into the fashion 'zines.

1. All Japanese people are, or at some point, were ninjas
I stand corrected again. This one is 100% true.


Ninja folklore notwithstanding, to me, the most amusing thing about this list, is that these are all images of Japan that Japan itself actively advertises and projects onto the rest of the world, who wouldn't know better. Oh, and when I say that these are stereotypes that I've been "[*] asked about," let me clarify--almost all of these are stereotypes that I've been reminded of by Japanese people. They are so unabashedly proud of having sustained the charade for so long, but even it has been slowly crumbling under the weight of its own impossibly grand metaphor, that not even the mysticism of the roaring 80's can perpetuate any longer.

So there you have it. And knowing is half the battle. Unless that battle were against a ninja, in which case 'knowing' would only amount to you knowing you were already dead.

vacation's come and gone too late

News In Briefs
WYWS Edition
* I'm not sure what's more irritating about coming back--the soggy 95 degree Okayama heat (Paris was barely warm enough for shorts), climbing the Ridai hill for another morning at the office in the aforementioned slop, or the culturally-imposed guilt trip upon return from an extended absence to a Japanese workplace without proper omiyage. It doesn't bother me at all that I never bring anyone anything, but for the "always buy something even from the next town over" wiener-trains whose incessant questioning fills my ears, simple negligence will never do. Instead, having finally attained an uncomfortable level of Japanese cultural assimilation, I now feel free to move about and pick and choose the elements of Japan that best suit me. Keeping my shirt on while I run? Ok, fine. Texting or email instead of face-to-face communication? Sure, I'll adjust. But buying your dumb ass a souvenir every time I step out the door? Sorry poindexter, does not compute.

* To its metaphor-loving detractors, while Clone Wars may have been the animated pimp-slap to the aged and botox-infused face of the Star Wars "franchise," it mattered little to me. I am not loyal enough a fan to give two shits about which brand of deodorant George Lucas uses, nor am I casual enough to not know about the Wilhelm Scream.
I am comfortably in the middle--that glorious patch of Star Wars fandom whose inhabitants do not mind enjoying the movies for what they are. We can pay our money for a ticket and some gummies, walk into the theater, and cheer as badass clone troopers shoot the heads off of robot separatist scum for two hours, and love every second of it without having to feel obligated to bitch in an internet forum about each movie announcing the franchises' death knell.
Haters get bent.

* For your immediate viewing pleasure, you can find some new photos from Paris in the now complete album below. Oh, and sorry about the gaping ass crack. Curiosity couldn't be helped. Who would have thought--French butts are just like American butts?

Paris in August

Further proof

News In Briefs
WYWS Edition
Couldn't let the month slip by without a sakura photo
* April is an insanely busy time of year in Japan. It's the traditional end and/or beginning to all the boring economic and societal structures that fit inside a 12 month period (the fiscal year, the academic year, job tenures, passing of gallstones, etc.). I hoped to escape the insanity by feigning insanity; hiding under my desk, blowing bubbles with my spit and wearing old granny panties on my head. Alas, the ploy failed. I was soon dragged out by my bare ankles, and appointed as a homeroom teacher--swift punishment for my crazy insubordination.

Me.
A homeroom teacher. After months upon months of suspicion, with all the subtlety of a baptist minister sex scandal, it is clear that our school's higher ups have lost their goddamn marbles. I haven't been entirely thrilled with having been a teacher for the past year, so you can only imagine the four-letter vernacular ballet I've been perfecting the past week or so. From a hastily composed email sent the day I found out:

Kinda like...uhm...dating a girl for a while who you're kinda on the fence over, and then the night you're walking to her house to break up with her, she sends you an ecstatic text message announcing that she's pregnant. And moving in. And bringing her cats.

It's not the commitment that bothers me, it's the responsibility. Among other things. And yes, I'm aware that the two are one and the same. Shut up.

Thrilled to start the job hunt
* April also marks the "falling man season." Similar to the bothersome rainy season that soaks June and July, graduation ceremonies are often emphatically punctuated by Japanese youth, so overjoyed to surrender their personal freedoms to the working Man, that they heave themselves from gymnasium roofs, and lecture hall balconies, in a massive, preemptive salaryman coup de tat. "Come for the celebration, stay for the police statement" they always say.
Ah, Spring in Japan...

* Old Mrs. Kobayashi is pissed. And extremely frail, apparently.

Pop destroyed the scene

News In Briefs
WYWS Edition
* Contrary to our last edition of the News in Briefs,** rest assured I come to the keyboard this morning sober as a bird in AA.

* Exploiting classic "boiling frog" tactics, I'm slowly but surely re-writing the unspoken Japanese office dress code into something a little more "lax." Now strictly reserved for special occasions, the daily necktie was the first to go. Onitsuka Tigers for dress shoes, then the suit jacket. Button shirts were replaced by thermals and track jackets. Jeans replaced khakis and slacks. I don't really comb my hair anymore either. At the moment, it's standing in a sort of lazy, faux-hawkish pile on the top of my head. Personally crediting myself for introducing casual Fridays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, I think it's safe to assume I'm the proverbial butter on a goddamn roll here.
Pretty stoked for wife-beater weather.

* "Japan" is a title synonymous with with comparison, crazy weirdness, and positively zany contradiction. Or so I had thought, before coming here. I had a small epiphany/rant at my keyboard the other night after a particularly frustrating day at work. I decided that Japan is really only as different and 'unique' as people are willing to make themselves believe. I mean, hey--if 'believing' that being a part of something stereotypically 'perceived' to be unique and exotic, inherently 'makes' one unique, don't you think that it would be in one's best interest to perpetuate the common interest? How many people would rather bite the business end of a .45 than face the reality that their own individuality is a contrived psychological defence mechanism? Hopefully more on this iceberg soon. Unfortunately, I have serious attention span issues when it comes to coherent streams of thought on actual "issues," per se.


"Subway: Eat Flesh"
* A moment of silence for "Doob dog," "Weed-wurst," and "Joint-furter," who sadly never made it off the Subway marketing whiteboard.





**DI Fact: News in Briefs are called so because the first few times I posted under that header, it was morning, and I was still in my undersleepwear.

Old enough to party (at school)

Stumbled across a lone SD Mini card lying on the pavement outside of Tsutaya on my way home from renting Superbad the other night. While a painfully disappointing content scan of the photo data box failed to reveal anything terribly incriminating, I still figured I'd post a few of the lost photographs anyway:





Just seemed like the right thing to do.
You know, just in case the photos' despondent owner is scouring the internets as we speak, looking for 'em.

Dudity Snooze-fest

Anybody lose a contact?
I won't go into much detail about the particulars of the Saidaiji naked festival last weekend because it was bar-none, the most underwhelming waste of potentially brilliant hilarity that I have ever seen. On the coldest night in February, the already mostly naked and freezing asses of five thousand Japanese men, hammered out of their skulls, are hosed with icy "purification" water, then shoe-horned into a shrine to compete for--well, it honestly doesn't matter, does it? How the shit could they possibly screw this up? In Japanese lore, the Saidaiji Hadaka Matsuri typically requires no introduction because this insanity is just supposed to bloody write itself. Only a gorilla in a yellow bikini squatted on the peak of the Saidaiji's pagoda, firing a belt-fed banana cream pie machine gun down on the sweaty crowds could propel this golden potential to even greater dizzying heights of awesome. This, is the legendary Okayama festival notorious for sometimes unflinchingly killing its hapless participants in their drunken, masculine revelry.
Seriously though, what a totally sweet way to buy the farm.

The festival atmosphere upon arrival was positively electric. I could already smell the sake hanging heavy in the dense clouds of sweat and testosterone, humidity eminating from the bodies of eager participants who jogged about the shrine's premise to keep warm. Fans, supporters, townspeople, curious onlookers, foreign tourists, and a small army of police crammed the narrow alleys, and the makeshift bleachers that surrounded the shrine itself, where, at the stroke of midnight, 5000 belligerent naked men would converge to do fearsome battle for a pair of wooden shingi. At stake? Battle scars, cash, glory, pride, and good luck for an entire year.

Preconceived expectations be damned, a metallic crash announced the arrival of 12:00am, and the start of the event. The compound spotlights went dark, eliciting a cheer from the twenty-something-thousand crowd. Eyes tense, and flashbulbs at the ready, we were prepared to witness brutality. Riots. Little naked men trampled asunder, spilling off makeshift stairs and crushed against poorly padded wooden support beams. Blood, sweat, tears, and loincloth wardrobe malfunctions. Thumb hovering over Handycam 'record' button in mind-numbing anticipation, I was practically begging for the proverbial snot to start flying. Alas, it never did. Instead, in the fifteen or so minutes of actual competition for the sacred wooden incense "shingi," seemingly little more than polite jostling occurred. I was expecting a "Keep Away" variation on Russian Roulette, but what unfolded looked much more like a teenage mosh pit at Bible camp. But with more skin. I think I even heard participants apologizing to each other above the rhythmic din. Shot some decent video, but I won't bother posting it because I wouldn't expect it to bore you any less than I was, holding the camera.

And then, just as it began, the festival's raging boner quickly fell soft and limp as police gently began the premature evacuation. Many of the participants clapped themselves to keep warm, appearing confused, but relieved; others, disappointed. Apparently the festival's actual "action" is always quite short. I exchanged pleasantries with one particular reveler near the gate who cordially tweaked his purple nipples for a photograph. Unfortunately Fortunately my camera was off at the moment.

Two respective orders of fresh takoyaki and re-fried fried chicken later, I was back on the Ako line already considering a train ticket to that one festival in Nagano where participants with a burning desire to be crushed, ride a giant (probably 'sacred') timber down a fucking mountain. Note that if this unbelievable potential somehow doesn't manage to pan out, then I am seriously considering packing my shit and leaving this country and its weaksauce festivals.



** Feel free to browse the infinitely more boring description of the festival at GoAsia.

Coldest of Calendars II

Daikin-san finally blessed my apartment with his constructive customer service after work yesterday. Stood up on his tippy toes and poked at the heater, scribbled in his notepad, jiggled my windows, sniffed around my porch, ran outside, then ran back inside and excitedly warned me not to turn it on "until he gets back." He dashed out the door leaving me in my genkan deeply puzzled, and still holding his pen.

Flash forward to this morning. Woke up in frigid dismay: the Speed Stick applied after last night's shower had frozen in my armpits. UnderArmor, hung up to dry, had fallen down and shattered on the floor, while the small troupe of roaches who play Mahjong under the fridge, were huddled around a tiny firing barrel in the middle of the kitchen, warming their stickly paws. Undoubtedly using the broken pieces as fuel.

Ironic that the two warmest places in my tiny apartment are the exhaust vents on my PS3, and my heated toilet seat.
Hopefully tonight is the last night I'm forced to play Warhawk from the bathroom. Getting kinda cramped in there for my nightly controller chucking tantraums.

** UPDATE: 6:00pm **
I was surprised to find Daikin-san patiently waiting for me when I arrived home this evening. Apparently his love for air-conditioning/heating units knows no bounds; the pup tent outside my door indicated he had long since been anticipating finishing what he started.
As my key snapped the door bolt open, like a Pavlovian dog, he sprang to action, swept past me in the doorway, and leapt to the heater above my bed. Not before removing his shoes first though. As he pried open the unit cover, I swore I could hear the yelping of tortured animals inside. A thin stream of blood began to trickle down past the remote sensor and on to my pillow below.


"Aah... Yappari sou da" he mumbles thoughtfully, snapping his left hand into a single yellow rubber glove.

Suddenly, he plunges his fist deep inside the machine, arm twisting this way and that, before pulling out a clump of fur--a dead rat. Then another dead rat.
Then a tangled mess of human hair--black, possibly a wig.
The industrial plastic bucket next to the bed clatters to life, slowly filling as the helpless heater surrenders its foul quarry.
More hair. Another rat--still live. A pentagram. A glob of candle wax. A single-handed dagger, its blade twisted and warped. A fourth rat, but only the tail this time.
And suddenly, the wall-mounted beast goes silent.

"Dekita!" he exclaims, triumph spreading across his bespectacled face.

Like a realtor handing the keys to a new homeowner, he places in my bewildered palm the unit's remote control.

"Mou, daijyoubu yo.
Shinpai shinai de."


I turned towards the kitchen to rinse the blood from the remote, but when I returned, he was gone.



Glorious warmth.

The Iceman Cometh...and Ignoreth

News In Briefs
WYWS Edition
* Okayama is cold. I would be fine with this, in a hypothetical region where one could feasibly expect "winter" with all the delicious trimmings: snow, ice, wind, penguins, Al Gore in a parka, Mr. Freeze, etc. But this is no such region. Here, upon looking out the window, one would not expect from the weather's sunny disposition, to find one's underpants frozen to one's butt crack by the time one reaches their place of work.

Beautiful Okayama: a million below zero, and no snow
* School is back in session. Having finished grading the pre-vacation exams, administering the post-vacation exams, and started preparations on the year-end exams, classes may now officially begin. Hopefully we'll manage to scrape together enough time to do work on non exam-related material. Like, oh, I dunno... actual studying maybe? I'd say that in the year I've been here, we've wasted anywhere from 75 to 99% of our school time on exam preparation. No huge surprise though, as the same could be said for Japanese society outside school, where there is plenty more time to piss away on university entrance exams, English proficiency exams, job qualification exams, various licensing exams, rectal exams, eye exams, exams to get in to schools where they prepare you for other high-level entrance exams... You get the idea.

* Sat next to a dude at lunch who was so good at slurping up his ramen noodles, it sounded like he was sneezing inward. A reverse sneeze? Is that even humanly possible? Oblivious to the scientific impossibility, he kept on loudly inhaling, then pawing at his nose like an eighty year old clydesdale sucking in a massive soupy head cold.
"ssslorp" -wipe- "ssslorp" -wipe- "ssslorp" -wipe- "sssloooorp"
Clearly, I have no idea how my food is to be properly enjoyed.
Just felt like this needed to be shared.

* Q: What do the Japanese call a bald head with a wicked ass comb-over?

A: A barcode.

Proceed with teh lulz.

To the peanut gallery, with love

Weenie men click to enlarge. Then cower in fear
Following certain accusations** in the comments stemming from my most recent post, I made a quick stop at the convenience store for lunch on my way home this afternoon. Five minutes and 400 yen later, I left the store reeking of sweet retribution.

Brazenly discriminatory potato snacks, and cup sake: the choice sake for grown-up homeless men all across Japan. Go on ask yourself--could there possibly be anything more blatantly manly than "thick taste" chips and sake under a tarpaulin down by the river?

No.
The answer is no. There is not.

I believe there are apologies to be made.




** To clear up any more potential confusion as a result of misleading sarcasm, rest assured that all photos appearing on the DI are taken with my camera(s), and by my hands, regardless of how disgusting, juvenile, or idiotic they may be. Thank you.

Par for the course

Just in case you were wondering, here's our list,
in no particular order:

"岡山理科大学附属中学校" is thankful** for...

...Tsutaya, Cup Noodle, warm facial hair, no street "open container" restrictions in Japan, rice balls and tonkatsu, downtown rockabilly nite, not sleeping on the floor, air high-fives, chest bumps, parents' basements, region free BD-ROM, Oshio's guitar, The Backstreet Boys, rubber indoor baseballs, Johnny Depp, Gmail, fried chicken on a stick, Converse tracksuits, undisturbed cigarette breaks, eyepatches, Uno hair wax, Brad Pitt, mixi, after-hours shabu shabu, students who deliver on their homework, nomihoudai, tabehoudai, women's volleyball shorts, non-prescription dandruff shampoo, David Beckham, the bento lady, whenever Nagao skips school, clip-on ties, schoolgirls on escalators, reusable chopsticks, and apple juice.




** Most of these were based on smallish "interviews" with people I live and work with. The rest, were just quick-and-dirty assumptions I made based on trite evaluations of their individual personalities.

Lead the angelic chorus with a baton wrapped in fear

News In Briefs
WYWS Edition
* Open your room window around 10:30 on a Wednesday night (EST), stick your head out, and listen carefully. Hear that? All the way from Japan--the greedy cackling sound as every last semblance of fun is being sucked out of music.
The kids weren't singing loud enough, so the homeroom teacher put them on the roof of the school to apparently teach them a lesson. Compassionately so, because I would assume that death from hurling oneself seven stories to the ground would be less painful than death by pure humiliation. Things in the classroom have gotten rather standoffish lately, most evident in my primary role having been further reduced from "dancing Western clown" to "white guy who scratches detention minutes on blackboard."

* To anyone who thinks their English is better than mine, between "more painless" and "less painful," which would you say is more appropriate? I went with the latter, because my gut says I don't actually need validation from your worthless opinion.
For whatever reason, my gut also says "Don't feed the pregnant lady."
Whoa, I bet that'd make a sweet t-shirt.

* In celebration of all the fantastic software finally being made available on the PS3 this week, I decided to give mine a promotion in sweet irony: from "kitchen traffic coordinator (doorstop)," to "desktop logistics manager (paperweight)." An amicable compromise for an amicably worthless machine.

* Sure, I may be working on Thanksgiving next week, and Gatzke Road may be 7000 miles away, but it matters little. I'll still find a comfortable trough to stand behind, and continue my longstanding tradition of putting food in my face until my lungs threaten to implode, after which I plan to move to the dessert table. Chopsticks, seaweed, and teriyaki notwithstanding, November 22nd is still on.
Like orphan Donkey Kong at a Denny's.

Proud to represent my America.

* This happened the other day. Kind of exciting. Scroll to the bottom for the most recent update.

Have daikon, will travel

There was something strange about the way runners were warming up Sunday morning. They were sprinting in droves to the sign-up tent. Then excitedly waiting in line. Starting position? Raffle? T-shirt sizing?

Wrong, wrong, and for sooth.

Radishes.

We were each given giant radishes for participating in the race.
3000 participants, at two radishes a head, and that's a pretty huge goddamn run on the local radish harvest. All these people, scurrying around chattering, psyched about running and stupid radishes, and I'm the only one still confused.

"Congratulations on your hard fought finish--here are your sweet and delicious Hiruzen radishes, better luck next year."
"Wait, wait, don't I get a t-shirt? Something I can at least wear!?"
"Yes, but t-shirts cannot be enjoyed in stews, salads, or with boiled meats. Next in line please!"
"Wait, what the f--??"

...

"[in Japanese] Hey bro, so like, are you gonna hang on to those radishes, or what? Cause..."

Functional clothing would have been nice. Instead, the race organizers assumed a white chocolate bar, a Hiruzen tourism pamphlet, and these damned radishes would be nicer. And to think, I was just starting to forget I was still stuck in Japan.
Figure I'll give one to a friend who actually knows how to cook, and then keep the other under my bed to bludgeon any would-be apartment burglars looking to relieve me of my now broken PS3**.

Oh yeah, the actual race? Sadly, for all the pomp and circumstance, it was still a sloppy bag of arse. I plodded through the hilly and windswept 10k course in 41:21--an embarrassing time. One I certainly won't soon forget. Still good enough for 35th place though--soundly crushing all the old women, handicapped children, and that gangly Australian dude, yet slow enough to handily lose to the runners who were actually there for more than giant, penis-shaped vegetables.

Probably should have just slept in.
Would have been more productive.




**Tragic, unrelated incident

Eye of the Badger

Next Sunday is the Hiruzen Marathon in northern Okayama. My first ever competitive footrace, and I'm so nervous, I chewed off all my fingernails just in writing this. My concerns are not in my ability to finish (as often the case with amateur pre-race jitters), but rather in how fast. I want to place well enough to justify continued training for the possibility of a full marathon early next year. Furthermore, I need to prove to myself that I'm not better off in a rocking chair on some porch, screaming for the personal nurse to change my colostomy bag.

But have I trained hard enough? Have I sucked down enough raw eggs? Have I run up enough sets of stairs to warrent air-humping to Eye of the Tiger? The race is held every year on the same mountain (5k up, 5k down), so fair enough. I've been training on my commute route--which, if you remember, requires ascending a goddamn mountain every morning. I've done sprints, I've done stairs, I've ran quick 5k's, I've ran 5k's in sets, I've ran 10k's, and I've ran the 16k loop to and from the shrine every Sunday morning with the team for the last month. I've run backwards and forwards, with weights, and without, in the rain, and in the blazing sun. Sometimes even, backwards with weights in the rain.

My fastest 5 and 10k times are not total shit, but I'm still nervous. I'd rather not be ready, for readiness implies an acceptance that I have reached my limit--that I cannot possibly run any faster. The problem, is that I'm sure I still can. I'm just not certain how to tap into this measure of speed; a measure which I had always believed required first being chased by a shotgun-toting badger riding an angry bear.

Shit. How the hell am I going to legally acquire both a shotgun, and a bear in just a week?

Feels rushed, because it was

No, I haven't forgotten.

I actually held off on posting Go-En IV which has been mostly finished for a long time now, because the actual Undoukai event was so long ago, and because the video is mostly rubbish. I guess holding off on it is what made the event so long ago in the first place...

Eh, shyaddup.

Oh, and it's really boring. But I hate eating up my hard drive with unused crap, so I'll post it anyway. The event's actual blog was posted about a month ago, can be found here, and the rant about asshat Billy Blanks, here.

The video is a big sloppy bag of arse, but you're welcome anyway.

Beastmaster hasn't been returning my calls

His massive, carefully timed yawns were oblivious and gaping--begging to be photographed. Jaws unhinged to reveal crooked rows of jagged, yellow teeth. Eerily human. Like a domesticated, bespectacled primate, dressed for success and casually riding the Sanyo Line to work on a summer's afternoon.




There's just too much funny here for just one caption, so swagger on into the comments and let's everybody have a jolly good swing.
I'll get the train rolling:



* If you've got the iron stomach, click to enlarge, and count all the pixels in each snaggletooth.

Zero 7 Yamato: Putting the "super" in "superstitious"

News In Briefs:
WYWS Edition
* I know, I know--I'm not supposed to fall prey to trailers advertising blockbuster movies that we all know will inevitably be shit.
But this one has robots.
And Robert Downy Jr.

* The Mayday Parade and Paramore show that I played hooky from work for, was pretty awesome. Getting drunk and then waiting 6 hours for the trains to start running again was most definitely not. Crappy photos are up somewhere else. May I warn you that certain images might need *ahem* explaining.

* A mere 15 days after its mysterious demise, my neighborhood 711 is back up and running, and I couldn't be happier. The only major noticeable difference I've picked up on is the front entrance is now an automatic sliding door. Oh, and they moved the porn rack to the far side of the ice cream fridge. Not that I knew where it was before the explosion or anything.

* To the poor bastard in #305:
Bro, you just gotta know you're in #304.


Sucks to be you, riding the J-train down to unlucky town.






Wait... So if I'm in #205, does that mean...

...Oh.


Son of a bitch.

Gaijin Whorage

The alley smelled like greasy hamburgers. And fish.

It wasn't particularly her fault--"get off the Midosuji line at the #24 Namba street exit" made it easy enough. But coincidence landed our meeting spot outside the ostensibly named "Hotel Sala Del Rey." A narrow alley; lined with hawkish neon and gaudy plaster hotel fronts, vertical matchbox parking garages, and the small fish market on the corner. There I stood, nervously waiting, desperately mopping sweat from rivers on my forehead. The makeshift dam I'd built out of sports towels to keep the flash-floods from soaking my boxers had been breached. Sweaty ass crack in a suit.
Fucking great.

She had scurried off in search of the other hapless cast member who was either lost, or just late, and left me sweltering and alone to watch the market's late afternoon hustle and bustle. Elderly Japanese men in white rubber boots load dripping styrofoam crates of iced fish onto the back of a small panel truck. Another was hosing down the alley where I stood, sending up wisps of steam as the water met the hot asphalt, turning the humid air around the hotel into a suffocating bath of sweat, fish, and air conditioning exhaust. Fishy puddles started to gather around my shoes, lapping at my tailored suit. Where the shit did she go?

I didn't know many details--only that it was supposed to be some kind of bit part--a small speaking role in the typical mindless Japanese variety programming; however, a quick survey of the surrounding Osaka street suggested the role could be in some pixellated skin flick, if I didn't get shanked in the ass by one of the fishermen first. I put my thick sunglasses back on, hiding the avalanche of perspiration down furrowed brow.

At last, she appeared around the corner by the McDonald's, dragging a short, middle-aged American. Appropriately dressed for the professor role he had evidently been preparing for for: unmatching tie hung limply over an untucked, paint-stained polo shirt; frayed khakis and beat-up sneakers completed the look. I had a sneaking suspicion that his wardrobe was "fit" for the role, only because he was the role. In broken Japanese, we learned he was a part-time art teacher to "young, old people." Great. I take that back--his disheveled gray hair said he was just beyond middle age. Still American though.

The director burst from the hotel's partitioned entrance, grinning broadly. Strong handshake for a J-train. Right there in the alley in front of the hotel's shielded parking garage, we exhaustively went over the specifics of the script. We're going to be shooting at poolside. Art hippy was cast as professor Cussler--made apparently famous for his award-winning experiment--an experiment we were to be re-enacting for a Japanese science program. I was to be "Watson," his labcoat graduate assistant. I am still swimming, and mildly displeased.

Better late than never, my "clue" train suddenly screeched into the station. Wait, 'normal' Japanese hotels are too small to have pools... I thought. And why are there so many tiny hotels in such a small, low-traffic area?
We were at last escorted inside to the softly lit air-conditioned oasis, where we strode past the automated front desk and large colorful screens displaying room features, to the tiny elevator in the back. Soothing jazz and funk played throughout the lobby. Wait, what the shit...? Screens? Room photographs? No incriminating staff? Chandeliers...Prophylactic vending machine...

Oh.

Snap.



To be continued...

More intense than a frypan to the face

Dinner last night was sublime. Men's yakisoba.
That's right. Yakisoba. But for men.

If you're a chick, or a dude with a significant case of gender confusion, kindly get your prissy bitch-ass out of my kitchen.
Or dojo.
Whichever is cooler.

Office pilates

I am always pleased to find other people in my office who somehow manage to do even less work than I. Take this guy for example. A classic suit & tie samurai, weary from the daily rigors of sitting immobile at a desk reading the newspaper and scratching his ass. Sure, he may be sleeping now, but he's got the leathered skin and battle damage eyepatch to prove he deserves every hard-fought second of that catnap.

Probably poked it out dozing off over his pencil tin.





Running in 90 degree heat after dark is the shit. By which, I mean it royally sucks.

Resolution

Rejection is always hard to take. But I honestly think it's easier to swallow when it pushes you to the ground and kicks dirt in your face, or bitch-slaps you in the hallway before posting compromising pictures of you on the internet.
The worst rejection is courteous and apologetic: "Let's just be friends," or "We regret to inform you," or anything that precedes "gozaimasen." Always formal and polite; as empathetic eyes fall to the floor, rejection begins with an apology, and ends with a half-baked smile, or a forty degree ojigi.

My own fault though. I should have made plans sooner, shouldn't have banked so heavily on the H.I.S. penguin drones, and should have had a backup. It's probably for the better though. Guitar Hero III drops in November--just in time for Christmas with the family.

On one hand, Hidden in Plain View's premature breakup makes their sophomore release a bittersweet one, seeing as the record was released long after they parted ways. Recorded during the band's final hours, Drive-Thru records has given the band a proper send-off with Resolution. And iTunes has given it to me for free. I guess the reminder of their breakup could be a harder pill to swallow--that is, if this cd was rubbish. But it's not. It's awesome.
It's true though--in life, even when it's over, it should end with a bang, and never a whimper. Even at our very worst, I think everyone deserves their own swan song.

It's h-o-t here. All the petite Japanese women hide under sunbrellas and silk arm sleeves, while the suit & tie samurai desperately mop their foreheads in silent protest. But no one says anything. It's life, and life is uncomfortable in the summer. I take solace in knowing other places around the world haven't been so lucky--especially southern Europe, where sweltering citizens attest they are living in a "free sauna from God."

Fuck, that's pretty hot.