Oh crap, "Lost in Translation" is taken already!

backslider

2010-05-18T08:37:00.001-07:00

well, it's been a very productive two weeks of "Repetition And Paper Assignments" from school. there's just something about designing alternative tools for clean development mechanism sustainability assessments that gives me the sudden urge to try to work out all the bass lines to the Toadies' entire "Rubberneck" album. and then chide myself for A.) blowing off my assignments to play guitar (what am i, an undergrad??), and B.) perpetually being into bands that broke up years ago.

but then i found out that the Toadies actually reunited a while back. even if my essay's not quite done, it's one less thing to feel bad about.

oh, plus i went to a barbecue last Sunday that involved a 3 year old kid running around screaming CHINKO!!!!!! (the Japanese equivalent of "pee-pee!") at the top of his lungs every 5 minutes, and a 30 year old guy drunkenly deciding to smear Blair's Sudden Death Hot Sauce on his nipple to see if it would hurt (it didn't, or so he said).

yeah, the fact that i'm a candidate for 2 master's degrees is utterly ridiculous.

that's what's so illogical, about being a Smurf.

2010-04-30T06:38:00.000-07:00

i teach English to people in their late 20s-late 30s at a few companies. one of them in particular is pretty anally retentive about making sure their employees learn to communicate. the other one... sincerely does not give a rat's ass what we do. the only catch that is the class is geared towards people who already have a semi-intermediate proficiency; apparently the priviledge of blowing off work for an hour and a half requires a TOEIC score of at least 550. occasionally i do a "real" lesson for them to keep up appearances. most of the time we just sit around and bullshit, and that seems to suit everyone just fine.

we talk about sci-fi movies a lot. everyone at this particular company has a weird semi-obsession with Dragonball (hey, it's an IT firm). anyway, we got to talking about Avatar, the new Alice 3-D movie, and the trend towards 3-D movies in general, and how people thought mainstream films with sound would never happen... and then how they thought films in colour would never happen... and then the conversion from film to video... but we all know how that turned out. so the question is, would the day come when 3-D is the norm?

as this is a pretty astute group of guys, one of them very astutely pointed out that the genre that carries innovation to the mainstream... tends to be porn. this realisation, of course generated endless giggles from these 32-year old high school boys about how cool 3-D porn would be.

maybe i've been teaching in this kind of atmosphere for too long. it occurs to me, on occasion, that i could have all their asses handed to them in a sexual harassment suit if this class took place in the US. but the only reaction that even remotely registered was "well i just don't think porn has the budget for 3-D..."

if they want to watch (3-D?) porn and talk about it in class, that's all well and great to me. as long as they're using english. i just find the whole institution so illogical. i mean... let's say you're hungry and don't have any food. aaaannndd, for whatever reason, food is not available to you at that certain point in time. if you can't eat, why the hell are you going to pop in a DVD and watch other people eat??? or open up a magazine or internet site and look at pictures of food?

anyway, that was the bit of the Tao of Chris that my pervy students enjoyed last Monday. not that they registered a word of it, since they were all too busy contemplating the idea of 3-D porn. and probably Dragonball.

Oita Kotsu is a jerky, jerking, jerkfaced, stupid mean bus company.

2010-04-28T20:54:00.000-07:00

since my usual carpool buddy is enjoying her public holiday, i decided to be eco-ma-logical and take the train and the bus to school. also, one of these days parking in Visitor is going to cost me my scholarship, my firstborn child and perhaps even my mortal soul.

(completely irrelevant side note: my classmates are at the moment analyzing the correlation between one's creepiness and thickness of moustache.)

anyway, i left at a very reasonable time and took the perfectly nice and punctual train from Oita to Kamegawa. about 10 or 15 others got off the train with me to catch the bus to the university. we arrived at the stop and...

the driver made a little shit-eating grin of glee as he stepped on the accelerator, leaving us in a cloud of diesel exhaust. there must have been about 5 people on the bus who couldn't possibly wait 30 seconds for us to board.

everyone started messaging on their cell phones, informing their classmates or coworkers that they would be a bit late. not by much though, as another bus was coming in 5 minutes...

the 8:45 pulled into the stop, let off one passenger, and...

"[static and snigger] sorry, the bus is full so we can't pick you up. You'll never get to school on time, DICKHEADS!! AHAHAHAHAAAA!!!"

The young (British? Aussie? Kiwi?) professor hailed a taxi. the rest of us poor bastards not getting paid to be at our destinations swore under our breaths.

now, if it were just me getting dicked over by the bus it would be an unfortunate bout of bad luck. and a shitty start to the day. but no, it was a good 12-ish people who would be late to work or school because of this infernally atrocious excuse for a god-awful bus company. and the real kicker here is the bus line is actually losing money through these stupidly inefficient schedules and failure to coordinate with the much more reliable train schedule. so i can only conclude that:

1.) Oita Kotsu has a virtual monopoly on transport from the city centre to the university, and therefore can get away with charging extortionist prices for absolutely shite service, and
2.) the staff gets a genuine kick out of fucking around anyone affiliated with their biggest customer.

seriously, this is why people give up on public transport and use combustion engines with something like 30% efficiency to get to wherever it is they want to go and kill the earth. which is why Oita Kotsu bus is a jerky jerking jerkface stupid mean bus company.

special chicken

2010-04-16T01:30:00.000-07:00

first week, second semester, first year of grad school. maybe i was just out of practice, but it was rather gruelling. and considering i have a presentation on Monday, the slides for which i have to e-mail to our professor tomorrow(yeah, Saturday), it never stops. sometimes i think there's absolutely no point in being relieved over finishing whatever project/report/position paper/ presentation/essay/ whatever damned thing, because another one is coming in 2 minutes like the Tokyo subway.

however, this week's highlights are:

Tuesday: having completed my position paper Monday night, i was able to play bass and drink at Johnny Salaryman's friend's mom's house. for some reason i was under the impression that it was his dead grandma's abandoned house in the middle of nowhere, but it was very much inhabited. as it's a typically tight Japanese neighborhood, i wonder what the neighbors must think. who knows, maybe they enjoy it. that was my first time playing bass with real people, as opposed to the Pixies on ipod. good times.

Thursday Highlight was this conversation with my classmates at lunch:

Zhang: Fran, try this chicken.

Fran: No.

Zhang: Chris, try this chicken. it's special.

Me: why is it special?

Zhang: ....... because i made it.

Me: (eats the chicken piece) .... yeah, you're right. it is special chicken.

Friday:
class and i played the UN at the COP15 (Copenhagen conference). we probably got more done in 2 hours than the heads of state finished in however long the real one took. oh, and since i was the IPCC, i got to wear a cool lab coat:
woooooo.

that's all.

back to school, to prove to Dad that i'm not a fool

2010-04-09T07:12:00.000-07:00

so i was at the library today attempting to read about incandescent lightbulb replacement projects in India, when i was very rudely interrupted by the high-pitched staccato sound of Japanese office lady chatter.

in the APU library, there are signs on every wall, in multiple languages, that clearly state
NO TALKING
NO EATING AND DRINKING THE FOODS [sic]
DO NOT LEAVE UNATTENDED THE BELONGINGS [sic]

after about 30 seconds of annoyance bordering on uncalled for anger, i pulled up iTunes and put on Crystal Castles. problem solved.

at noon i packed up my stuff and started heading down the stairs. "Johnny Salaryman" called to see if i was ready for lunch. i answered and barely whispered "moshi moshi, toshokan ni iru, chotto matte ne?" (hey dude, i'm in the library, hold on a second)

and then some jerkface in a red jacket chided me for using a cell phone in the library. the office ladies were still talking.

wtf.

hisashiburi

2010-04-08T03:25:00.000-07:00

after a really tedious password recovery process... i decided to start blogging again.

yes, just in case you missed my e.e. cummings-esque distaste for capital letters, it's back.

unfortunately i won't have any travel stories for a while since i'm now a slave to IMAT, but i think my musings on cap and trade agreements, Yakushima, embarassing Japanese linguistic fuckups, my attempts at learning bass guitar, the antics of my cats, the endless array of colorful characters of the Miyakomachi drinking district, and general forays into insanity should be stimulating enough.

roman candles in Porno Park

2008-08-10T04:53:00.000-07:00

*names have been changed to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent alike.

we decided that the other side of the dry-grassy park, the shady side with the concrete benches, would be a better place to take our party, out of the skin-charring sun. we gingerly took our 1400yen Home Wide special grill to the other side and set down all of the barbecue equipment, tennis balls, hula hoops, food and
"HAHAHA you guys look behind this bench! they've got porn!" we checked inside the box. "only chicks though. plus the DVD itself's gone."

in the tradition of *Melvin and Brendan naming Osaka parks after the activities that go on there (e.g. Blowjob Park and Sex Park), we dubbed the abandoned grassy area with its odd cylindrical sculptures with decades-abandoned colorful paint, Porno Park.

i hadn't played catch or used a hula hoop in 10 or maybe even 15 years, easily. but we brought them out for the day to try our luck through the haze of our hangovers.

we'd decided on this barbecue in a rather drunken state the night before; in fact i had to call Melvin in the morning and ask "so did i drunkenly hallucinate this, or is this barbecue thing really happening?" and it was. damn it to hell, it was even though the 1400yen Home Wide special grill and the mokutan charcoal that Mika, Hiro and Kenji had made me ask the saleslady for to practice my Japanese, wasn't taking to fire so well.

"Kenji, leave the grill alone! it'll heat up if you just leave it alone!" Linda let out a sigh of exasperation mixed with amusement at her new pyromaniacal friend. Kenji pretended not to understand and continued poking at the charcoals.

a cargo barge glided into the nearby harbor. "ooh" i hope it's Russians! hello, Russians!" Melvin waved to the boat. this degenerated into our bizarre habit of impersonating Russian lesbians from the TaTu song we're so fond of singing at karaoke.

the conversation veered to sex, as it often does. "you know..." Skywalker mused. "when you shave your nuts in the summer... there's nothing like it." in our loopy starving and hangover-cured-by-more alcohol states, this was hilarious. it still is.

the inevitable "i have never" drinking games commenced. the guy from the karaoke place the night before seriously creeped us the hell out. he hasn't called me again. thank god.

i plucked away at my guitar while Kenji talked on the phone to his girlfriend please don't stop being my friend i have obligations to her, you understand?. fireworks shot off in the distance, legit ones ignited by the city. i continued plucking and strumming, what else could i do while i was forced to disvow all of the knowing gazes and conversations of the past month...

when he finally hung up the phone, he sat down next to me.
"genki?" am i fine? for fuck's sake i have feelings for you, you know this, and yet you have "obligations" she's an angel with a harp and a halo well i have a sparkler and a guitar how's that? what the fuck do you think?
i smiled my best rueful smile. "mochiron, Ken-kun. why wouldn't i be?"

i sang the song i'd written in honor of Skywalker's departure. it was well-received by the departing one. it occurred to me at some point that this was the first time i'd be saying goodbye to someone who'd been with me for The Duration......

when the city fireworks ended, we lit sparklers and roman candles, the kind to which Kerouac likened the Mad Ones, the Mad Ones he loved and cherished so much the way i do.

i felt elated. i felt like shit. i felt alive. i raised my roman candle to the sky. "i'm the Statue of Fuckin' Liberty!"

eventually we attracted the attention of the police. they told us sparklers were ok, but not roman candles or anything that made a noise. whatever. we'd burned all the roman candles anyway.

atmosphere

2008-05-21T00:23:00.000-07:00

Author's note: this actually happened a really long time ago, Halloween maybe, but i just found the notebook i'd written it in. enjoy the anachronisms.

"CHRIS!!!!"

i glanced around, my neck muscles twitched, looking for the source of whatever voice had called my name, as the echo reverberated around the parking lot. "hi." finally i looked up and an odd little man with large headphones on waved down from the 5th floor.

"Dude, I gotta...." I searched for a reason to avoid the coming conversation i didn't really feel like having "go to work...." but he'd already headed for the elevator to come downstairs.

the door opened and he emerged with his guitar and ever-faithful street performing equipment. one of those carts employed by hunchbacked old ladies to aid their walking carried the yellow amplifier which, every Saturday night, blared the sounds of Hendrix's whammy-bar insanity across Miyako-machi.

"howreyouuuu?" the usually wide-eyed and alert fellow shifted his weight from foot to foot. if i didn't know better, i'd say he was drunk at 3pm or maybe even back on the junk again. i shrugged.
"fine i guess."

he sighed. "Jen is.... left. Sucks." he and my co-worker had been neighbours. he used to hit her up for cigarette money.
"yeah." Pause.

finally he made one of those random, inexplicable and yet somehow close-to-home comments he tends to make.
"your atmosphere is different."
"what?"
"atmosphere. it's different."
i snickered. "For good or bad?"
"for good."
"oh. well i guess that's--"
"you have terrible atmosphere!"
"huh??"
"but it's good. you understand what i mean?"
"no dude, i'm sure that i don't."

he left for his job ("a secret," he told me), and i stood there scratching my head over whatever the hell kind of ex-junkie Zen he was on about.

the only thing that sucks more than existence is....

2008-04-28T06:28:00.000-07:00

we sat across from each other in the dingy izakaya, ice already melting off the frosted mugs. a group of businessmen's chatter at the next table grew louder and louder in their drunkenness. the salt clung to the soybean pods set out before us as a libation snack. i raised my mug. "kampai. to....."

well shit, i thought. what exactly do you toast to when you're sitting across from a guy who'd been threatening suicide all week?

when you'd spent 4 hours in the police station a few days before trying to track down someone who refused to answer any call, explain where he was, except in riddles and rhymes that the cops called a "cry for help" if he were actually going to do it he wouldn't have told you he would've just done it obviously he trusts you why do you think he called you? well goddamn it if it's help you want, you need to answer your fucking phone and tell me where the hell you are.... what do say a toast to?

he had a shopping bag with him, full to the brim of travel brochures weighed down by a hardcover Japanese copy of La Nausee.

i know why he called me. he called me because i get it. i'm not going to die over it, but i get it.

finally i had my kampai. i raised my glass, "to existence."

"to existence."

because really, it sucks and it's futile sometimes.... and the only thing that sucks more is the alternative....

that Kafka, what a little smartass

2008-04-16T23:18:00.000-07:00

i considered driving to the city office because it was raining, only a little bit, but decided not to because it wasn't quite far away enough to make driving worthwhile. i considered just walking up Fujimi-dori, but decided to go through Beppu Park instead.

why, i wondered. what did it matter. what did anything matter? Sartre's novel La Nausee and an almost-but-not-quite-healed broken heart is a lethal combination. hey old guy, why are you bending down to exercise your knees? don't you know existence is futile and limber knee joints are impermanent, and therefore your efforts to preserve them are absurd? hey pidgeon, why are you scuttling across the dead squashed sakura blossoms made wet with rain and brown with decay..... through the fog i could almost make out the sickly obscene fake bright colors of the non-operational ferris wheel at the abandoned amusement park on the hill.

almost.

nausea.

and why was i even walking to the city office to sign up for health insurace that would probably end up being more expensive than just paying out of pocket for health checkups? the thought occurred to me, the only way health insurance to be worth its price is for whoever's paying for it to become really fucking sick like with a brain tumor or something.... a bitter snicker burst forth into the misty fog.

"Jaaaa, zat is pretty funny, nicht?" i looked to my left.
"Franz, what are you doing in Beppu Park?"
his expression didn't change from the picture you can find on Wikipedia, nor any color fill the black and white of his slightly stick-out ears and center part down his hair.

"I am not in zis Beppu Park, but merely in your existential qvandary."
"Alright fine. What are you doing in my existential quandary?"
"You didn't ask Freddie Mercury what he was doing in the Texas Instruments cafeteria last veek."
"Freddie didn't talk to me. He just danced around and sang "Another One Bites The Dust" so I'd feel better about getting my heart ripped out of my ass."

Franz took out a ratty hankerchief and coughed into it. He peered into the red substance he'd coughed up. "Sorry," he sighed. "Eet's ze tuberculosis, you see."
"Well the rain's probably not good for it. Here." He shrugged and ducked under the black umbrella. "I can't remember, did you speak English?"
"Nein. But you do. Und you can fake a good German akzent."
"Yeah." We kept walking. All of Beppu park is just this winding yellow pathway punctuated with too-beautiful flowers and man-made babbling brooks. "I don't know where I'm going anymore."
"Zen it does not matter which vay you go."
"You stole that from Alice in Wonderland."
"Nein. You did."

We came to one of the park exits. B-con Plaza loomed above in all its bubble economy era excess.
"Shit. This is not where I wanted to go."
Franz cackled and then hacked up another bloody phlegmwad into his handkerchief. "But you just said--"
"I know. I know. Shut up."
He shrugged again. "I just vanted to show you... if nossing matters und life is meaningless, zen you should not upset yourself so over such trifles of ssings. Like getting lost."
"Yeah...." I sighed. "Goddamn it Franz, I hope no one finds out about this conversation we had. They'll think I'm completely insane."
He shook his head. "Nein. You are not crazy. Crazy people do not ssink zey are crazy; razzer zey sink everyvahn ELSE is crazy, und zey are sane."
"You stole that from Lost."
"Nein. You did." He made another disgusting 30 seconds of wheezing and choking.
"They did cure that eventually, you know."
"Ja, und zey could also give me ze, how you say, Prozac fur meinen melancholia und anxieties.

But zen.... vhat vould I write about?"

He was gone. I stopped to smell a tulip. It was nice. And then I kept walking.

first snowboarding day in 6 years

2008-03-19T09:32:00.000-07:00

i can't even concretely remember the last time i went skiing. i want to say it was shortly after my aunt died and everyone gathered to have fun together in her memory. that was 6 years ago, and during that time i just didn't feel any desire to go out.

but after nearly 3 years of living in sub-tropical Kyushu, the winters (or lack of winter as i'd always known it) take their toll. i'd listen with a twinge of envy as my friends and family members relayed tales of this year's snowstorm, billions upon billions of intricate white crystals falling from the sky. the way they packed onto a hill underneath a pair of freshly sharpened K2s or a board.

so when an acquaintence of mine was organizing a "last chance" trip up to Hiroshima to indulge in the last vestiges of winter, i had 2 words: FUCK. YEAH.

the snow was very loose and granular like large grains of clear sand, but soft when you invariably fall down on your ass. i surprised the hell out of myself, mastering the basic snowboard move pretty quickly.

when you stare down a hill, barely able to gauge the grade and go anyway, and say to yourself "aww, this isn't so bad..." when your legs give out from holding the same beginner's position all day and cause you to fall on your ass.... when you have to stop all mental activity outside of getting down that damn hill.... almost falling down but finding your balance again and jerking yourself up... when you realize that sometimes falling failing can be more beautiful and artistic than sticking the landing...

god what a feeling.

Fairytale of Thailand

2008-02-23T04:02:00.000-08:00

shimmer and rot at the same time

if japan is the land of duality, then Bangkok is a surreal mental and sensory assault on multiple fronts. sparkling--literally iridescent monuments stand on grassy medians guarded by christmas-lighted avenues where people sleep on smog-choked and littered streets, Mercedes Benz roll down the street past child beggars with missing limbs everywhere are tailors hunting you down to sample their wares with the prowess of a shark, taxi drivers harass and so desperately try to make a decent living, it seems swindling is the only way. everywhere, everywhere, the smell of fish sauce and soot particulate, spices and diesel, coconut and puke. shimmer and rot at the same time. pictures of the much-venerated King are everywhere. in his numerous photos in full military regalia, he looks more like a kindly grandfather presiding over a stamp collection than a kingdom, a country.

How To Meet The Locals
i found myself wandering the streets of Bangkok alone on the 2nd night, due to my travelling companion finding (ahem) alternative companionship at a bar. i headed for the night markets; a lack of daylight never seems to stop commerce in Bangkok. i strolled past the watches and t-shirts and handcrafted souvenir incense holders and candles and
"hello ma'am, where you from?" shit, you're gonna try to sell me a suit aren't you
"Canada," i lied.

I spent the next few hours chatting with the night market workers. not one of them tried to sell me anything, although a few were clearly (but not aggressively) trying to pick me up. when they asked, i told them i had a Japanese boyfriend--my 2nd blatant lie of the night. while disappointed, they seemed impressed that a farang (foreigner) would have an Asian boyfriend.

my new friend was ethnic Chinese, and we talked a bit about the condition of Chinese people in Southeast Asia. about past jobs. normal things. there was a lot of silence, which didn't seem to phase my friend at all. that's something i've always enjoyed about Asia; there's no need to make random mindless chat for the sake of filling a silence. the other Thais at the noodle stand didn't seem at all concerned that a farang was sitting with them, on their turf. they didn't treat me in any kind of special way at all, i was allowed to just Be while i waited for my travel buddy to finish what he was doing.

my new friend negotiated the taxi fare for me, easily a quarter of what i would've been charged on my own. i returned to the room to find a 3rd roommate.

"is it OK if he crashes here tonight?"
i yawned. "yeah sure. just uh, stay on your side, alright?"

i suppose that's another way to meet the locals.

and the boys of the NYPD Choir were singing Galway Bay

"this is where we spent Christmas Eve 2 years ago, and it was awesome," Luke said as we climbed the stairs to Gulliver's Irish Pub. there were maybe 5 other customers and a band playing early 90s soft rock favourites. "hm. it was a lot different 2 years ago," he remarked.

i hadn't really expected a trip down someone else's Memory Lane anyway. it seemed our best option was the pool table.

the table was occupied by Matt and Lenny, and Englishman and Irishman respectively. both of them were "legally, technically, on paper English teachers" in Bangkok. i didn't ask any questions.

after getting trounced at pool (or snooker, as they seemed to call it in Bangkok), Matt suggested that we all go see his buddy's indie band play at some hole-in-the-wall club.

it was already an etheral song to my ears.

The Standards, a local indie/punk outfit comprised of 3 Thais and 2 Brits played a pretty decent set. the lead singer was a classic showman and performed George Michael's "Last Christmas" song in a very Sex Pistols-esque fashion. normally i fucking hate that song, and they made me love it. THAT is talent, my friends.

as the lead singer took over DJ duties after the band's set ended, Luke and i approached him with a request--was it possible, just maybe, that they had the song "Fairy Tale of New York" by the Pogues? it seemed too much to hope for, but didn't hurt to ask. the singer/DJ beamed and assured us, "later."

the clock struck midnight. we counted down. and then, to our delight-- Fairy Tale of New York blared out into the night!
we drank and danced and hugged and took our pictures with drunken expatriate strangers, all bonded together in dulling the guilt of not being with our blood families on Christmas Eve.

Matt, a quintessentially garrulous expat remarked at one point, "you know Chris-" he's one of those people who uses your name a lot "you seem a bit serious and reserved" shit here we go with the whole you need to loosen up and be 'normal' spiel "but in a good way."
"well," i shrugged, "that's something i've always struggled with. sometimes i can fake it, but it just gets exhausting. plus i don't like being fake. people seem to think there's something weird about being 'quiet.'" i paused. "but i've accepted it as part of my personality" sort of "and others can just take it or leave it."
"take it." he said.

as the bells were ringing out for Christmas Day.....

Ko Samet

fuck, where is that bus. Fuck FUCK!! where is that bus?!!?

it arrived 30 minutes late.i had a passing wistfulness for the anal-retentivene punctuality of Japan, then chalked it up to cultural difference (at the time. i would later come to curse the day we booked with this infernal company).

the bungalows of Ko Samet, Bangkok's backyard, were adorned with Christmas lights, paper lanterns, coconut palms and slow-roasting farang tourists of every nationality on the beach. at night they sipped on Singha, Tiger and Chang Beer, while the wait staff simultaneously played soccer, flirted and still managed to stay attentive to their customers. at breakfast, they seemed quite hung-over.

Thai waiters and salespeople are like cats. cats can wake with a start from an absolutely stone-cold sleep and pounce into action. there's no need to "look busy" when there's no legitimate work to be done. or to create it where none exists. i think we could all learn something from them.

our 3 days in Samet were a languid blur of turquoise water, dust-fine sand, people touting sarongs, bananas, massages, barbecued crab and dive trips. every night there were guys playing with fire on the beach.

it was a show, but it wasn't the most tightly rehearsed show by any means. the resorts even brought in a few fire show guys from Krabi or Cambodia for the show. but unlike most other tourist-oriented performances i've seen, it didn't look contrived at all. there was a certain endearing quality to their lack of professionalism; they were just cute pyromaniacal guys in sarongs, playing with fire. genuinely having fun regardless of how many times they've done the show. nothing to complain about there....

but even paradise on earth can get a bit dull. on to Phuket.

Kafkaesque Bus Ride from Hell

the bus to Phuket was on time. a surreal start to what turned out to be one of the greatest tests of endurance and sanity in my entire life. a ride on a Highway to Hell of which even the great ACDC could not have conceived.

the bus looked nice enough from the outside, with Finding Nemo characters painted on the sides. waiting for it in the choking pollution of Bangkok reminded me that i'd had my fill of the "City of Angels." that is, until we drove through places in the city that i hadn't seen, the world beyond the palace and Khao San Road, and i realized that i hadn't seen shit in Bangkok.

an annoying kissy couple sat in front of me, the whole time making audible lip and tongue smacking sounds with their snogging. an equally annoying couple of British girls were across the aisle from me with their feet practically in my lap. a big group in the front found their conversation so stimulating that they had to enlighten the whole bus at 1 in the morning.

but that ride would come to seem like a transport paradise in a mere 12 hours.

3 or 4am: maybe an hour after i'd finally fallen asleep they dumped us off in the middle of fucking nowhere outside of Surrathani city for 3 hours. my companion's inexhaustible good humor was really starting to piss me off.

sometimes i wish i were more "fun." sanuk. tanoshii. whatever you want to call it. you know, the kind of irritatingly sunny type who'd whip out a guitar and lead everyone in a singing of Koom Ba Ya or some shit like that and make the best of things.

but that's also a good way to get smacked around. and it's comfy in my cynical spiderhole.

7am: finally, after about 4 hours they loaded about 10 of us on a truck and drove us to (what we were led to believe was) the Surrathani bus centre. "Orange bus please," the shifty-looking sharky guy told us. in our bleary state, we all did.

we would all come to regret that decision most egregiously.

the flower garland on the rearview mirror jerked and swayed with the jerky motions of the bus, every time the tires on one side allllmost seemed to leave the ground on a turn. an air vent, leaked out a rather pitiful stream of air from outside, cooling only in the fact that it was moving air. every 500 metres or so we'd stop at a bus stop, or for any random pedestrian who motioned for the bus to stop. from what i understand, it's illegal in Thailand for a bus driver not to stop at a designated bus stop.

10am on and on they piled. after the seats were taken, they crammed into the aisle. an angry German couple in front of us implored the driver to stop taking passengers in a tone of righteous tourist indignation mixed with plea for mercy. in English, now the international language of complaint.

11:30 at one point the driver popped in some saccharin Thai pop CD to entertain the bus. the singer's sweet voice and semi-traditional sounding instruments escalates my desire to hurt someone.

12:00 i think Grandma in the next aisle pissed her pants. at least i have Mario Puzo's "The Last Don" to entertain me. it's a Mafia novel. about killing people.

Fuck Knows What Time: flat tire. i get out of the bus to pee on the side of the road in the bushes. can't bring myself to do it.

no food. no water. no toilet break. how long have i been on this fucking bus? my ass hurts. my neck hurts. my soul hurts.

i died. i caught bird flu. or maybe a firecracker blew up near me. maybe it was a killer jellyfish or some undercooked crab or dengue fever. either way i died and i am in travel hell. or maybe this is the way you get there. this dirt road is the river Styx. i bet you could get to Hell in like 2 hours on the Shinkansen. the supernatural Powers could learn a lot from the Japanese, really.

my friend is swearing under his breath. for some reason his frustration, together with mine, brings me comfort.
Me: Luke?
Luke: yeah?
Me: i hate this god-forsaken country and i want to go back to Japan.
Luke: yeah i'm not a big fan right now.

Eternity: god i have to piss like a racehorse. i wonder if it's possible for piss to go backwards and recirculate in your body. that wouldn't feel too good.

i'm thirsty. and i don't have to piss anymore. that can't be good.

we will indeed be on this bus for all eternity. i've accepted it. you've accepted it. we all just need to accept. and i think i'm coming down with gout.

4pm: arrive in Phuket. use toilet at travel agency. get a posh-ish hotel in downtown Phuket. we fucking deserve it. i take a 20-minute shower.

7pm: we find a Pizza Hut ripoff type restaraunt. it's clean. it's gorgeous. its pristine convenience makes me want to cry.

we devour our pizza like ex-convicts exonerated from Death Row. it's fucking ethereal. it gives me the worst case of the shits i am ever to get during my Thailand trip.

New Year in Patong

last year i spent the New Year falling asleep on my mom's couch with a bottle of Yellowtail in front of the Twilight Zone marathon on the SciFi channel. i vaguely remember cracking my eyes open for the ball drop, duly noting a meaningless change of calendar as i had 24 times before.

this year was spent in a Patong gay go-go bar.

as Luke had spent his day chatting up the staff of various clubs, we got invited to a barbecue at Hotel Spartacus. being the only straight woman at a Thai gay bar is a bit like being lactose intolerant at a cheese factory.
we went to a bar that L had promised a certain guy he'd go to. i found it a bit sad. granted i'm not a gay man, but the sight of guys in jockey-shorts with numbers attatched standing on stage, staring blankly, waiting for someone to come along and request their company didn't do a whole lot for me.
L's "friend" immediately rushed over and adhered himself to his side. an associate wandered over to keep me company.

i don't quite remember what his name was. he was every bit as charming with me as he'd be with any lecherous elderly foreign customer. we pored over my recently-acquired "Lonely Planet Phrasebooks: Southeast Asia" and he helped me with my dismal Thai pronunciation.

finally i asked him, "so you're actually gay, right?"
"yes, yes. i like boy." he emphatically nodded.
"yeah well... i'm a girl. you don't have to sit here and talk to me or anything, seriously...." he laughed and gave my knee a friendly slap as though i'd said the most ridiculous thing ever. "you my sisterrrr!!"
but things turned rather unbrotherly when we tried to leave. the bill arrived with a round of beer that the go-go boys had ordered and we were expected to pay for. we flatly refused, and i tried to give my "brother" a hug to show there were no hard feelings about it. all i got was a glare of bitter disappointment.

now for the record, a couple of guys who are into each other really doesn't upset me in the least (especially if they're hot). but outside i was surrounded with falsity, which in my mind came from the superficiality of the whole gay gogo scene, Thai culture shock and human nature itself.

"goddamn it...." my voice wavered with my eyesight, "i just want to talk to someone who won't try to sell me something, you know? it's here and in america and in japan, it's fucking everywhere... why can't anything just be real??" my friend tried to comfort my slightly depressive/tipsy/neurotic state, and i can't remember what he said anymore but i'm sure it was encouraging and supportive.

at some point i suppose the earth passed its median point in the orbit; there was no ball-drop or countdown no concept of time and firecrackers rang out like gunshots, fireworks detonated and paper fire luftballoons were launched up into the sky. people danced and hugged.

that was also the time when Don Clericuzio chose to show himself, his voice inside my head: "the world is what it is. and you are what you are."

i sat down on the ground in seiza, unable to process the staggering squalid beauty of a New Year, a new year in the sordid go-go district of schlocky Patong Beach.

a woman came by selling roses. i pointed to the half-dozen. "how much?" "100baht."

i took my time removing the plastic from their long, thorny stems. they were dark and velvety. Luke, followed by the next 5 strangers i saw, all got roses. no more questions asked.

the jungle

despite my brush with satori on the New Year, the glitz and overwhelm of Phuket left me feeling empty, aching for more and less at the same time.

after a 2-hour van ride, i found it at Chao Leung reservoir.

a 45-minute longboat ride is your passage to this remote paradise. our guide is genial in nature, but his amicability gives way to steely, stoic concentration when he skippers a longboat.

my accomodation is quite literally a rattan and plywood shack held together by rope, sitting on bamboo which floats upon the clear, warm water. there is no cell phone reception or running water, and electricity is run on a generator. all of this nestled in limestone rock formations that vault over the deep liquid emerald water.

i love everything about it.

and the really curious thing about it is that, in Bangkok (or any other city), this would be called a shanty town, urban squalor, poverty. here it's a sacred retreat from the outside world.

but the night is hell. hadean darkness. the creaking of the bamboo is magnified in the deathly stillness of the night. the movie The Evil Dead keeps springing to mind. somehow reading Isaac Asimov's novel "Nightfall," about the collapse of an alien civilization during their first period of darkness in millennia, does little to comfort me. i crept out of my shack and over to Luke's. the nightlights have been extinguished and there are no stars that night. no moon, just an almost tangible blackness that seems to stain your hands with ink.
"Luke...." i wished i could shout and whisper at the same time. "Luke?" this time a little louder.

fuck. everyone's asleep. everyone except for me... i'm the only conscious person for MILES. as a panic-induced pain set into my stomach and lower back, all i could do was ruminate on just how remote this place was, and how it would take at least 2 hours to get to the (probably) substandard Surrat Thani hospital from here.....

i don't know when sweet Somnus finally decided to show up, but he did. i think it was sometime after i'd realized that the wind that rocked the rafthouses was probably a wind of change, promise of better weather at dawn, of the coming sun.

i awoke to a painless back, sunlight and shorelines to be explored via kayak, limestone caves to climb into, and friendly (honest!) guides who made the most fantastic food i'd had on the entire trip.

breakfast--
me: hey, how'd you sleep?
Luke: fucking horrible. you?
me: same. i kept thinking about how much this place looks like the beginning of a zombie movie at night.
Luke: (*thinks for a second) no, zombies usually stick to big cities.
me: ..... yeah, you're probably right.

Power Outages, Jenga and Kittens

i think if human society collapsed and aliens came to excavate the earth, they'd think Bob Marley is some kind of deity. he's everywhere, all over the world.

a sort of tourist paradise has grown up around the Khao Sok park headquarters. it's wall to wall rasta bars, massage places, restaraunts and forest hotels.

we fumble through the dark to the Funky Monkey Bar, as the generators have all blown out. the staff is sitting around smoking. "how long until the power comes back on?" we ask the boy in the hammock, a white kitten asleep on his chest. he yawns. "don't know, 3 hour maybe?" his friend grins and holds up a Singha. "nothing to do but drink!"
and the workers here seem to lead such ethereally simple lives, lives that foreign tourists secretly envy and spend a lot of money to experience for even a short time. i can't help but wonder how the feel about that. do they want to leave? are they envious? do they thank their lucky stars that they aren't a part of the rat race that is Western culture?

i don't know the answer to those questions. the bar workers and i just played Jenga, pet kittens and played guitar for hours on end together.

Surrat Thani, revisited

after the experience with the bus, Surrat Thani was one of the last places on this earth that i ever wanted to go back to. but, we ended up there for a day waiting for passage to Bangkok and Japan.

beyond the bogus "bus terminal," there are little restaraunts, net cafes, schools, temples, mosques. it's a city. people live here. it's not a tourist construction, and i enjoyed the reality of it for the day, feeling as though i was finally experiencing the real Thailand beyond Patong and Khao San.

we were grossly overcharged at a restaraunt, but i didn't care. the guy needed to feed his family. his daughter took great pains to write English messages on the blackboard at the end of the restaraunt, great messages, that she felt the need to wipe away before anyone could see.

The Thai government bus is FANTASTIC. honest, punctual, cheap, and they provide food and water. that ride, from Surrat Thani to Bangkok, redeemed every horrible thought i'd had on that other bus.

All in All

i had been aching for a sort of intense spiritual experience for the months leading up to this trip. at the time, i sort of tacitly accepted that this wasn't it... or was it? perhaps Zen didn't come to me in the face of a giant Golden Buddha, but in the paper lanterns on New Year, in Don Clericuzio and Asimov, in caves and jungles and kayaks and elephants, in dirty local buses and dingy hotel rooms, in pizza joints and lemongrass. shimmer and rot at the same time.

1st floor

2007-11-30T22:36:00.000-08:00

i knew the new place was on the first floor of the same building as the old one, but which door? the other side of any of these doors concealed elderly salarymen swilling back shochu, or university students getting drunk on cocktails they couldn't afford-- but regardless of the bodies that contained them, it would be the questioning, frozen eyes staring back at me, telling me i don't belong.

unless i got lucky and chose the correct door....

i took a deep breath and pushed the red door. "Snatch" was playing on the TV in its new red niche, with the same sticker instructing all patrons to "Enjoy Yourself." the red bar, red chairs and trimmings with the kelly green Heineken light gave the bar an odd Christmaslike glow. Hacky and Noriko, already 3 sheets to the wind (in Hacky's case it was more like 4 or 5) bade me an enthusiastic hello. Tsugie poured me a beer.

yeah, I'd chosen the right door.

while it's definitely not the same place I'd made panda nesting doll towers, foraged friendships, tuned guitars, passed out, learned lewd Japanese slang, watched bizarre films and sang along to the Pogues so many times before and once had an intense conversation that lasted until sunlight filtered dust through the window--i could definitely get used to this place.

it's nice, having a little pocket of the red-light district of a dirty old town. and it's nice knowing everyone wants that, from San Fran to Bangkok and Aberdeen to Cape Town, Melbourne to Vancouver, and Buffalo to Oita.

quixotica

2007-10-26T07:40:00.000-07:00

Donki Hote (i'm pretty sure it's a nihonglified version of Don Quixote as in the Man of la Mancha) is the most ranom store on the planet. you can find porn and fake Gucci bags right alongside the electronics which are next to the toiletries and porn adjacent to the winter hats and halloween costumes in any season in close proximity to the alcohol, snack foods and porn. it's a technicolor dream house of consumerism and no taste, and an unmitigated hell in a hangover.

did i mention they have porn?

but anyway, it's a sad state of affairs when... the "cool" thing to do in Oita on a Friday night is to dress like a tart and prance around inside Donki Hote. or if you're a guy, to hang out by the bike racks with cheap scooters while (actually not) watching the tartily dressed girls walk in and out of the store.

i need to start drinking on Friday nights again. preferably not in the Donki Hote parking lot.

20% fault

2007-10-03T05:26:00.001-07:00

the saga of my car accident continues. today i went to the police station to finalize everything, and the same officer pretty much said the same shit to me that he did a week ago. including this little gem: roughly translated, it's along the lines of "you have to take care at intersections and slow down, and you shouldn't have assumed that the other driver was going to stop at the stop sign."

assume that someone would stop at a stop sign? how utterly daft of me! imagine that!

i mean we got a DOG!

2007-10-02T06:40:00.000-07:00

this morning i woke up to some rustling outside my screen door. i ignored it for a while until it got really annoying and disconcerting. i looked outside and… there was a poodle with a little doggy jacket on sniffing around on my porch, eating my spearmint plant.

now, this wouldn’t seem so odd except… i live on the 5th floor of a (theoretically) no-pets-allowed apartment building.

turns out my neighbor’s girlfriend was over visiting last night, and brought her little dog. unfortunately, there are very few Japanese books that include the phrases “Excuse me, do you have a dog? he’s on my veranda eating my plants. please remove him. no, i won’t tell the landlord, but if the dog scratches up my screen you’re paying for it.”

so i’m totally getting a cat. yeah.

understanding in a car crash

2007-09-26T21:58:00.000-07:00

pardon the uber-emo title.

but as you may have guessed, yes. i got in a car crash. luckily i'm alright apart from some minor whiplash, which i got some neck pain patches for. the doctor for some reason felt the need to tell me not to ship them outside of Japan. heh, don't worry; these are mine, biatch! they're awesome!

i may be learning to find the good things in bad things that happen. after being in the hospital and seeing how insane it is there, i'm willing to cut certain individuals in/out of my life some slack.

i'm alive.

2007-09-25T06:12:00.001-07:00

and so is the woman who ran a stop sign this morning, thereby causing a collision which, according to the Beppu city police, was only 20% my fault.

and even more surprisingly, even though i was a bit rattled and near-pukey for about 2 hours afterwards—no panic attacks today.

i feel as though i turned 25 and the universe said “well, i’m afraid you’ve exhausted your lifetime quota for Worrying About Stupid Shit. you have no choice but to be calm and unable to take anything seriously for the rest of your life.”

cool.

CatMan

2007-09-18T06:22:00.000-07:00

so last Sunday i was walking out of A-Price when i saw the cutest kitten ever wearing a collar and secured to a shopping cart, apparently waiting for his or her owner to finish shopping. i stopped to pet it and baby talk to it for a while, as onlookers probably were thinking i was nuts.

cut to today, as i was coming out of the train station and i saw the same cat sitting on a middle-aged man's back.... while the man was riding a bicycle. the kitten didn't look completely comfortable with the situation, but still not as freaked out about it as you'd expect.

riding a bike with a kitten on your back. i just love random acts of eccentricity.

saishou wa gu, jankenpon

2007-09-17T06:33:00.000-07:00

the Chinese Zen master Joshu said, "a clay Buddha cannot cross water; a bronze Buddha cannot get through a furnace; a wooden Buddha cannot get through fire."

i think this is the underlying principle of jankenpon, a game routinely played in and probably invented in Japan. you might know it as "Rock, Paper, Scissors." the rules are simple. paper beats rock. rock beats scissors. scissors beats paper.

kids janken for who takes the first turn in a game of Go Fish, grown adults janken for the prize at Sushi Meijin on Sunday nights at precisely 8:00 (this is a spectacle i highly recommend). they janken for money; hell, there's even "strip janken" with an elaborate set of rules. if you and someone else are vying for a subway seat (or overly politely offering it to the other), the obvious solution: Janken.

Janken is the settler of disputes, the decider of who is worthy. no argument is too high-stakes or too petty for the gods of the rock, paper and scissors. in fact, i've seriously wondered why Emperor Hirohito didn't just challenge Harry Truman to a game of Janken. humanity could do well to recognize the simple fact that there is no ultimate weapon in the janken game of life, and to think otherwise will only bring about certain destruction.

and even though some smartass might violate that sacred law and come up with a Volcano, or nuclear bomb, or even the middle finger, everyone knows that there is no almighty win-all. all you have is your hand muscles, your gut instincts and the endless cycle of jankenpon. it's the ultimate equalizer.

50 Word Fiction: Volume 1

2007-09-16T05:10:00.000-07:00

lightning strikes in the distance, a consolation prize to the promised typhoon. a poor substitute for the electricity that never came. weathermen are never right. what a bogus science, or perhaps modern alchemy? i'll go outside with a lightning rod and bring the storm to me. Thor incarnate, I am.

congruence?

2007-09-09T00:12:00.000-07:00

not that it really matters whether my job matches what i studied or anything, but i do get shit about it sometimes. a lot of people wonder why i'm teaching English if i have an environmental degree. i've always had the freaky feeling that, in my major, you either live a life of poverty handcuffed to a redwood or you become a pointy-headed academic who hides in a library all day. my route was going to be the pointy-headed one.

and it could be still. but what i got into, what really struck a chord with me, was what i learned about how environmental problems are just a product of greater social ills and the System. cut to Thursday night, at a class dinnner with my Toshiba students. they all told me how much they like my class and how much fun they have there. i know how stressed out they are, and how hard they work. it made me think, "wow.... i'm giving these people refuge." it's not just some distractor from what i studied; it has EVERYTHING to do with what i studied. maybe this really is something i can do with my life.

awesome.

summer holidays and christmas cake routine

2007-07-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

i hate the summer. at least in Japan, i do. it's a weird thing to say for someone who comes from a place that's covered with snow for 5 months out of the year. but in Kyushu it's as if the life force drains out of me along with the sweat, and any cleansing cold showers i take are useless, as the grit and dirt of melancholy stick to my body and refuse to evapourate into the sticky mass of the air, because it can't take any more.

i will be 25 in less than 2 months. i promised myself i wouldn't get depressed about it; in fact the thought hadn't even occurred to me until now. but 25. i should be ... you know, established or something. established as what, that's a damn good question that i don't even begin to know the answer to. yeah, i'm an english teacher and i'm employed and don't even live in the same country as my parents let alone the same house but.... for some reason it's not enough for anyone. i thought it was enough for me, but maybe i was wrong. maybe i'm not strong enough not to succumb to all that crap. all that buying a house and picking out bridesmaid dresses and getting stock options with your giant fortune 500 company employer the hybrid vehicle to show how responsible you are the cheerful abandonment of the sheer unabashed cheeky cockiness of your university days when you were going to change the fucking world and look good doing it.....

choose life.....

a festival atmosphere

2007-07-27T07:21:00.000-07:00

i'd made it as far as the elevator door tonight when i realized how little i wanted to be in the sweatbox that is my apartment. likewise, i didn't want to wander Ekimae street alone, but still i turned around and wandered off into the night.

something about these summer nights -- the air so thick with sea-salty, subtropical moisture it feels like you can grab a sticky handful of it, the faint smell of sulfur exhaled from the mountains, the sound of firecrackers in the distance-- brings me back to my first days in Beppu when i'd wander the streets and sit by the beach by myself. watching the moon glitter off the surface of Beppuwan as the oil slick churned underneath.

tonight, Ekimae-dori was awash with girls in colorful yukata, the breakdancers in front of Tokiwa, crappy reggae covers emanating from the sports bar that i despise (but every foreigner here seems to love), mothers and children attempting to catch fish from plastic kiddie pools, guys screaming solicitations to buy whatever edible item they're selling, and charcoal grill smoke rising up from the stalls on both sides of the street. i walked on the sidewalk instead of going between; thought it would make me less visible. ghostlike.

the isolation. the alienation. feeling invisible and yet painfully aware that everyone must be wondering, "who is this weirdo and why doesn't she have any friends?"feeling like there's no one i can really talk to in any language. knowing that, while i'm acquainted with a ridiculous number of people, i actually have very few friends.

then i'd remember that it was exactly the same way back home. "home." whatever that means.

has my situation really changed all that much in 2 years? i mean, suppose the few people i'm really tight with suddenly ran into visa troubles or started receiving Yakuza death threats or something had to leave the country--i'd be in exactly the same place as before.

there are those here who said they'd take care of me if i were to stay a long time.... but i'm reluctant to count on that. nothing is permanent here.

or maybe i'm just bored in my sweatbox apartment on a Friday night and ruminating.

house plants

2007-07-20T21:47:00.000-07:00

my friend left the country today, back to the life that awaits her in Tennessee. she’s not the sort of person i probably would have befriended if not for being foreigners in an absurd country, but i’m very happy that we did.

she had a rather large collection of house plants, most of which she’s entrusted to me.

normally this time of year is when i start mourning the people i’m losing. but you know what, life's too short for that. i am sad to lose her, but grateful for our brief friendship. and for the greenery and fresh oxygen in my apartment.

pervy kids make my job amusingly worthwhile......

2007-06-11T05:36:00.000-07:00

for some reason i was dreading my 4 straight hours of kids' classes today. that's the norm for Mondays, but today i just really... REALLY didn't want to do it.

but it was actually pretty good--all it takes is a new game sometimes. and when we were playing Hangman (a horrible game on so many levels in my opinion, but it kills time and the kids like it), one of my kids kept yelling "H! H!" to guess the letter.

which isn't that funny when one has little to no knowledge of dirty Japanese. but i do. the English letter "H" is a homonym for "eichi," which essentially means "fuck" or "pervert" or something to that effect. this brought on a barrage of giggles from the 11-year old kids in the class. and, since i'm much like a 12 year old myself, i started laughing too.

it all further confirms my belief that the secret to effectively molding young, moldy minds, lies in telling lots of dick and fart jokes.

power lines

2007-06-05T07:03:00.000-07:00

after about 2 weeks of shitting bricks over whether i'd be able to get a visa extension permit on such short notice, i finally went to the Immigration office today with my coworker and all the documents i needed. Kaori and i waited outside the drab grey door for the final 5 minutes of the officers' lunch break. despite the fact that most white-collar slaves here routinely shove seaweed and chemical-wrapped rice down their throats while checking e-mail and answering phone calls, one does NOT, under any circumstances, fuck with the lunch break of Japanese government workers. at precisely 1:00pm, the portly man in the blue suit with his shiny gold "Immigration" badge on his left pocket opened the tall grey door and said "hai, dozo."

the flourescent lights flicked on and the other portly man in the blue suit processed the papers of a 35-ish guy who, from what i could tell by glancing at his passport, was Chinese. from what Portly Government Stooge #1 could tell, all of my papers are in order. the government of Japan does indeed think there is a place for me in their fine country.

the Chinese national left with his materials while i filled out my own papers. then the Portly Government Stooges Numbers One and Two commenced the paranoia-inducing comments about my former company, in loud Japanese of course. now.... of course i didn't get everything they were saying, but my Japanese (and knowledge of human interaction for that matter) is good enough to know when people are shit-talking. and they definitely were. Kaori and i glanced at each other. she glanced disapprovingly at PGS#1&2 . i shot them a look that said "i understand everything you cunts are saying," which wasn't entirely true but they didnt' need to know that. eventually they shut up. (Kaori eventually told me they were making fun of the Chinese man who was in line next to me. a rather cunt-y thing to do while on lunch break behind the door that no one must enter between the hours of 12 and 1, let alone while on duty and in the presence of the people they were meant to be taking care of. cunt-y indeed.)

once i was finished writing, Kaori and i sat down on the chairs in the waiting area next to a young Filippina woman was playing with her child. the little girl immediately took to Kaori's bright smile, kind face, and 5-months pregnant belly.
"nansei desuka?" Kaori whispered. the little girl grinned and held up 3 fingers to indicate her age.
"usotsuki!" the young mother retorted. the girl looked down sheepishly and held up 2 fingers, caught in her innocent lie. Kaori's infectious laugh rang through the dour palace of bureaucracy.

later, as we were driving back to work with that precious stamp in my passport, i gazed through the power lines that ensnared the view of the fog of the sky intermingling with the white volcanic vapour of the earth and i thought to myself, "this place would be pretty fucking breathtaking if it weren't for all the damn power lines."

tune out

2007-05-25T09:42:00.000-07:00

so i was in a coffee shop today trying to study some Japanese when a few foreigners came in. i pretended to be too engrossed in my studies to be friendly and social with them.... it's not that i hate other foreigners (what the hell is that phenomenon anyway? it's got to be some form of Stockholm Syndrome or something), it's just that i don't want to make that same awkward, stupid conversation that you're always forced to make (are you a student? what program are you with? where are you from? how long have you been here? how's your Japanese? you think you're SO fucking special in the words of Thom Yorke, don't you). so i avoid any kind of random foreigner contact at all costs. nothing personal.

but anyway the girl talking.... she had one of those voices that just carries, and i'm sure her conversation was immensely fascinating to the person she was talking to, but i just wanted her to shut the fuck up as soon as possible. while i'm doing my damndest to understand the language that's usually going on around me, i still have the luxury of tuning it out when i want to hear things but don't feel like listening. but the sound of random English is like an aural train wreck. particularly when the word "like" is spoken about 3 times per sentence.

i wonder if i sound that stupid when i'm talking. probably.

My 5 Minutes as God

2007-05-06T04:29:00.000-07:00

4/29

today i just watched a butterfly take what may well have been its first flight. it was in a sewage gutter, it had black wings that shone an almost iridescent blue, and it looked like the most delicate black paper fan. as i watched it struggle to unstick its feet from the concrete and fight the wind that flattened its wings to the ground, i wanted so badly to pick it up and throw it into the wind. but i knew that, A. i might crush its delicate body. and more importantly, B. if it got to the air by some other force beside itself, it may not have the strength to stay airborne, and the impact when it finally hit the ground again would liquefy it.

so i watched it fight and struggle for however long i did. no doubt the old ladies at the fruit market down the street were wondering why this hen na gaijin was staring into a sewage ditch. i stayed there also to guard agains the cars on that narrow street; they would swerve for a human (however eccentric) but not for an invisible black paper fan on the ground.

and finally-- liftoff!! i gasped as the black paper fan with its blue iridescent wings floated up and down but steadily higher until she perched safely in a cedar tree, no doubt exhausted.

as i walked away, i wondered why people need presence of some personified God in their lives when there is so much divinity in the world in itself.

the Bored on the Train diaries

2007-05-06T03:58:00.000-07:00

i started a new job in February. it took me to many out-of the way locales that kind of require a car.... which i didn't have for 2 months. to avert the boredom and loneliness of waiting for and riding on public transit, i bought a little notebook and wrote in a very roundabout stream-of-consciousness sort of way. this is an account of what i wrote.

i like to sit across from people on the train who try to look at everything individually as it all goes flying by, knowing full well it's an exercise in futility. i like watching them because their eyes twitch and they look like they're about to have a seizure, or their brains are reacting to their own recent discovery of the nature of the universe.

it's also really funny to go into a big department store and watch girls tug their boyfriends around by the elbow like pets. granted i am a girl, but i could never figure out why they do that. exercising power, perhaps?

it's weird how i feel this need to do EVERYTHING right now--like get working on my novella again, get the new job up and running smoothly, AND alleviate the boredom that has hit me recently (how can i be bored when i don't even have time to stop and look at shit?) nope, can't stick to one thing. gotta do everything. precisely why i get nothing done, ever.

Weirdest Metal Show Ever

only in Japan can one attend a metal show entitled "New Wave Heavy Metal" which is actually quite old-school, and see everyone actually sitting on their asses while the leather-trenchcoat clad lead singer is all.... into it and doesn't seem to care that the audience is absolutely LIFELESS. after 2 pints of Guiness i really can no longer express the weirdness into words. there were lots of people there with no business being there at all, just like me. random.

St Patrick's Day

fuck, it's St. Patrick's Day and everyone's flaking out on me. ost important festival of the year, and once again--i want to do something and no one else wants to. shit. oh well, Selector it is. probably alone.

(note: this actually turned out to be quite a lovely night. ;) )

I ALWAYS miss the goddamn train. always.

I miss Vics. she was the Dean Moriarty to my Sal Paradise, my partner in crime. i need a partner in crime, preferably a girl, to get into random hijinx with. boys are good for shenanigans, but not so much the hijinx.
i want to get 2 cats, and name one of them Hijinx and the other one Shenanigans.

3/21 Equinox

i just went to my kindergarten to find that there is no school and i could have just stayed in bed. somehow i'm not extraordinarily pissed by this. maybe it's that element of pleasant surprise, like waking up on the day of a Buffalo snowstorm to find that school has been cancelled, and feeling that sweet release that only a snow day can bring. fuck orgasms, fuck booze and weed, that snow day surprise is the best feeling in the world.

today's the day of the Equinox, when supposedly you can balance an egg on its head and the weather will magically change to spring and people will pull out their blue tarpaulin, some with Rikka Bear of Doraemon, and pour sake down their throats under the delicate sakura. in Buffalo, the Equinox meant nothing, winter would potentially last another 2 months if it felt like it. St Patrick's Day was the beginning of the end, nothing more.

but anyway i say all this because, while it may be the celestial first day of spring, the air is still so wintry and clear. you can't see the mountains in the spring and summer haze, but today both Beppu Bay that draws from the Pacific and the snow on Mt Tsurumi (an active volcano) is clearly visible. always the unanswerable question, mountains or sea? mountains isolate, but the sea can be a gateway. it was for hundreds of years here. that's why Oita has more connection to Shikoku over the sea than Fukuoka over the mountains.

i'm rambling. definitely rambling. when is the train coming?

3/22 I am certifiably insane.

today (last night? this morning?) marked the 2nd time this week i've taken the early train back to Beppu from Oita after an all-night bender. maybe that intention thing is true--i was feeling bored and in a social rut, i broke out of my Lost and Heroes at Luke's comfort zone and ROCKED OUT last night. and, it turns out that, yes, i will dance with Abandon, that dashing fellow that he is, if given the right crowd and the right music. 6 tequila and tonics don't hurt either.
and...... i'm feeling the dopamine rush of a crush on someone who is leaving the prefecture next week. sigh.... at least he's only going to Kitakyushu. but still.....

3/29

it's always funny to see Japanese tourists in Beppu. it makes me contemplate which one of us is the outsider and which of us is the one at home, in their element.

4/2 the "i am a shit teacher" worries are hitting again. ugh. oh well. can't make everyone happy.

the air isn't clear anymore. and i miss him.

4/6 Driver's Test

taking the driver's test again. just another step in the process. life is a process. "the process," Mr Reichard was fond of saying. he was a fantastic music teacher. i wonder if he's still alive.
life is a process with only one possible result, regardless of what happens along the way. kind of renders the quest for results completely meaningless. it's a concept you hear about constantly, but it's hard to drill into your head.

3:00pm I PASSED!!!!!! Holy shit almighty i fucking passed!!!!!!!

now that was a weird Zen ego-death experience. i surrendered all desire to pass the test; i was just driving a car. it was me, the car and the imaginary people on the road. yosh. yosh. yosh. i think i might have to write a 2nd movement to my "Fuck You Driving Center" song. thanking them for the Zen Ego Death Experience.

4/23 Kids

they drove me seriously nuts today. but at the same time, i kinda feel bad for them. my class is just another thing their parents force them to do and, I have to cater to the parents' wants and wishes for their kids to "get ahead." to be the best. dog eat dog.

i wish i could just play and get them excited about English, learning, about life. instead of just becoming mindless drones who have had all wonder, love of learning and discovery systematically and purposefully beaten out of them.
i can remember being that age. even though i was a "good student," i resented teachers for forcing their "knowledge" down my throat. i don't want to be that person.

and why is it so damn important for these kids to be better than everyone, to get the edge? why isn't it good enough for them to just be children, and for people to just be?

J-Pop i don't hate

2006-12-12T05:21:00.000-08:00

Japanese pop culture can be a wasteland to Japanophiles and expat syndromites alike. everything is very sugar-coated, but the same can just as easily be said about US pop culture. at least this one is new and foreign and sugar coated to me.

but man, j-pop really grates on my ass sometimes. the only pop i have more contempt for is the US brand of it. yeah, i'm an indie snob to the core. get used to it.

ohh but Japanese indie... *drool. it's even better than euro or American indie. it's as if... once you find the good in Japan (in the music landscape and overall i mean), you appreciate that so much more. i am practically obsessed with stuff like Melt Banana, Guitar Wolf, Fullrangecaution, Mono, and Cornelius (the Tokyo DJ i've stumbled upon today that prompted this entry). that seems to be the essence of Japan to foreigners, the endless mandala search--sifting through unburied power lines and big boxes to find a splendid shrine, or having one's ear canals assaulted by saccharin pop daily and then finding a band that is so distinctly itself that the old and familiar things from home pale in comparison. getting your hands dirty and finding gold.

making peace

2006-12-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

most of my students are really cool. they bring me laughter and forget that i'm working for a soulless profit machine like GEOS. they make me think that maybe i am doing something for the greater good, while at the same time making me feel bad that they were sucked into all this by glossy brochures and the stealth sales training programmes that all of the managers undergo.

other students however, become the bane of my existence.

there's one in particular, let's call her "Sayuri."

when i first came here, she invited me to all of her parties, she brought me cake and whatnot as presents. being a somewhat reserved person, i thanked her as best i knew how. but i guess that wasn't enough for her. she expected the uber-genki foreigner reaction, she wanted someone like my predecessor. but i am not that person.

so, she did what every other student does when they spend their days taking shit from employers and customers--they take full advantage of their position as "customer" of GEOS, and complained to my manager. about me.

most of what she said had fuck all to do with my teaching style; it had everything to do with my personality. as it confirmed every insecurity i'd had about myself since arriving in Japan almost a year earlier, i was... let's say displeased. there was tension between us ever since then, which culminated on my birthday of all days, when i presented a her with a bottle of wine to apologize for a transgression that was actually her fault, but that's just the kind of good sport i am. she responded to my gesture by literally pushing the wine bottle away, leading me to teach the entire hour class on the verge of tears.

that was my breaking point. she was essentially pissed that i wouldn't kiss her ass and treat her as if she were the most fascinating cunt on the planet. she wasn't. i couldn't give less of a damn about Sayuri's flower arranging license or her work schedule. she wanted to quit? fine. let her quit. i just wanted her out.

but a strange thing happened during the last class. i observed her giving advice to a high school student (who, incidentally i adore). i watched her, with her maternal instinct, the sadness that must linger over the death of her husband fifteen years ago, the nature of her life... and for somne reason i just felt sorry for her. i thought she must act the way she does for a reason. maybe it has something to do with the fact that i'm leaving the company and won't have to deal with her anymore... or maybe it has something to do with the thing Miho, my mentor and my guardian angel in japan once told me--you have to love your students. even if they're a pain in the ass sometimes.

kanpai

2006-12-04T06:13:00.000-08:00

as per usual when i go to one of these things, i sat on the Fukuoka bus watching the suburban sprawl fly by and wonder why it is i'm going again. as much as i sometimes wish there were more social support for people in the outlying areas, i always end up drinking too much, awkwardly sitting by myself and contemplating the fact that the vast majority of these people are not my friends. in all fairness, someone from GEOS became one of my best friends i had here. but she was a rare exception in every sense of the word.

but what would the point be now, i wondered to myself in a sleepy state on the bus. i have real friends in Beppu now, i don't need these things as a Thing to Do anymore, that is i have enough of a social life outside of GEOS that i don't really need to go searching for one-night drinking buddies at some lame company bonding thing. but i had been feeling in a rut lately, and i thought this would give me a chance to revisit my early days here, the tenuous bonds that forge there, the drunken games of "i have never" that go forgotten the next morning along with most people's names in our memories. yeah, that might be worth the sitting and pondering and watching the room spin.

at the beginning of dinner, Tom (one of my trainers) took on the task of proposing the kanpai. the gangly Englishman was already a bit drunk as he lifted the glass to toast. "if this is your first year-end party with GEOS," he announced, "basically the purpose of this party is to get utterly pissed and forget the year. it's behind us. let's wipe the slate clean. kanpai!" the glasses clinked and the foamy beer coarsed down our throats and Tom's words sunk in. forget the year. Tom's cool, but i had always sensed a sort of quiet desperation in him. he told me once that he had initially resigned after 14 months, like me, but ended up taking it back and accepting a promotion. that was 5 years ago. now, here he is, telling us all to forget everything that had happened during the year. surely he meant only work-wise (after all the company is going under), but i can sense such a sadness in him that he wants to drink away everything, everything until he wakes up hung-over in London wondering why in the bloody hell he would have a dream about living in Japan and devoting his life to a company he hates.

as expected, the night consisted of beer, Chinese buffet, me proudly telling my triumphant story of exit to anyone who would listen, getting drunk, breathing in enough secondhand smoke that i might as well just take up the habit, the rancid meat topped with cheap kimchee on revolting slimy rice that is Yoshinoya, and generally feeling like i don't belong.

i do remember sitting at the bar at a place called Dark Room, alternating conversations between some Northern Irish guy whose name i can't remember for the life of me anymore, and Sheffia. Sheffia's one of the people who have been here for an awfully long time, like Tom. unlike Tom however, Sheffia is making her exit in a week. she told me all about how living in Japan can erode a woman's self esteem--not a man's so much, mind you, but a woman's. i wasn't sure what to make of that. "if you are a woman, and a gaijin in Japan," she said, "you are nothing."

i can only hope that what Eleanor Roosevelt said, that "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent" is true in Japan as well.

and that was the GEOS year-end party. wiping the slate clean, forgetting the year, and uniting with one another in our borderline alcoholism and collective hatred for the entity that brought us freedom and yet shackles us. kanpai.

holy shit. i mean... holy fucking shit.

2006-10-31T08:51:00.000-08:00

before tonight, i've fainted once in my entire life. that was my 10th grade biology class, while my bio teacher was "helping" me with the rib separation of a fetal pig dissection. the initial incision was fine, it felt like i was cutting play-doh. but when she had to come help me separate the ribs.... i felt dizzy and had to go to the window. i was humiliated in front of my entire class.

tonight, there were no snickering witnesses. tonight was scarier because i was alone. scarier because i'd managed to stumble upon a grisly depiction of an unspeakable practice inflicted upon women around the world, by far the most graphic i've ever read. "oh my god. oh my godohmyfuckinggod...." why couldn't i just stop reading? why wouldn't my retinas just stop processing such information?

but then they did. the vertigo set in. the phantom bile rose in my stomach, the image of the fetal pig with its swollen shut eyes flashing through my head as i made my way to the toilet.

in retrospect, that quick and decisive move to the toilet was the worst thing i could have done, because the next thing i knew my left eye was staring up at ecru porcelain while the right observed the cracks and grooves of the red formica bathroom floor of a place i had NO FUCKING CLUE where it was. it took me maybe 40 seconds to realise that it was my apartment, the place i've been living for almost a year and a half.

i stood up again, slowly... and promptly fell back to the ground.

i called the manager of my school in a groggy state and breathlessly told her about my fainting spell. she's extremely concerned that i might have fainted without any discernable cause, a sign of some serious underlying medical condition... but the reality is i know exactly what set it off. it's just too horrible to relay or explain. even in blog form, at the moment i fear that relaying what i'd read about tonight might send me into unconsciousness again.

i'm tired. so tired. physically and psychologically exhausted, but i can't go to sleep because i'm afraid of the imagery of what i'd read haunting my dreams and sending me into some kind of... i don't know, coma or something; i mean coma seems to be the only place you can faint to when you're already unconscious. and that fear, that deprivation of a normal human need for fear of self-inflicted psychological terror makes me cry. i've been downing water since the episode, thinking maybe dehydration has something to do with it (i went running today and then didn't have much to eat or drink, at least after the pancakes at Chieko's house and then the few pieces of sushi at maybe 4:30) and it's as if my body now has enough water to produce the tears over this awful thing.

i want to talk to someone. holy shit this is freaking me out now. not the health implications but what initially set off my fainting. but i can't, the images haunt me. maybe i'm supposed to work against this sort of thing, maybe that's like my purpose in life or something but... how can i address something that sends me into a coma?

omens

2006-10-24T07:33:00.000-07:00

i actually managed to drag my ass out of bed when my alarm went off at 9am for second day in a row, the rising sun of Nihon shining in my face. i put on my running clothes and heard an odd sound outside like a bamboo stick full of beans.

it was rain. a passing cumulonimbus was raining down in a freak sun shower. it made me think of Charlie Brown, how everything sort of rained on his little pocket of the world and how he'd feel sorry for himself about it... but i just sort of marvelled at it, thankful that i was actually awake to see it. i thought it was omenaic (omenaic, is that a word?) of something good to come. after watching the raindrops decline to the size of little fibreglass shards reflecting the white of the sun i went out for my run, through which i felt mostly alive for a change, even up that damn incline going to the park. ahhhh.... after the stagnation and overall ICK of last week kicked off by the consumption of a sunday night bottle of wine, maybe today would be a good day.

i was drying my hair when my phone rang. it was Yumi, from work.

"Chris-chan! it's Yumi. Manager wants you to give a model lesson at 1:30, so don't leave the school after you clock in."
"Um..." you'vegottabefuckingkiddingme " ok, what's her level?"
"I don't know, Yuri will give you details when you get in."

FUCK. i hate model lessons with a fiery passion as it is, let alone when i don't even know the student's damn speaking level. Tuesdays are supposed to be my easy day, and now i have to give a model lesson to some assclown businessman who can't get over himself enough to actually learn something from me, and then blame my manager for my poor teaching skills. shit shit shit.... so much for good omens.

but this visitor was nothing like i'd had in mind. Rieko came in at 1:30 on schedule. I said hello and gave my half-bow and half-nod. it was difficult to tell her age; like many Japanese women she could have been 19 years old or 35, and she was dressed in simple cargo pants and a blue hoodie.

the lesson began at 2:00. she'd lived in Australia for a year and a half, so i went out on a limb and taught her something from the Level 8 book, and she excelled. not only was her language great but... you know those rare times when you meet someone, and it feels like you were "supposed" to be friends with them? not in any kind of cheesy romance novel sort of way, i'm talking about that immediate friendship click that shatters any and all assumptions you might have about building trust and familiarity with time, and makes you think that maybe people really are connected to each other somehow. maybe that's not hippie new-agey bullshit after all.

at the end of the trial lesson (which turned into more of a drinking round minus the alcohol than a lesson really) i slipped back into Corporate Whore Teacher Mode and started recommending courses that would be a good fit for her. at which point she smile and whispered, with a slight Aussie twang:

"Can you keep a secret?"
"Yes, of course."
"Pinkie promise?"
"Yes, pinkie promise."

after we pinkie swore (something i haven't done since i was about 13 in my friend Laura's basement), she told me her secret. i can't disclose the contents of that secret--hey, i do not fuck with the Pinkie Promise--but i will say that she had no intentions of taking English lessons at my school, and hadn't in the first place. she had business-related ulterior motives for coming to school that day.

"oh, but... we are the same age and it would be fun to take your lesson... i'll miss you so much!!" spoken like we were lifelong friends at an airport about to depart to a different country after instead of a teacher and potential customer at a language school having met 30 minutes ago. "you won't tell anyone then?"
"no, of course not. can i tell you a secret?"
"yes."

there was more whispering about visas and work and whatnot, and she said she may know someone who could help me get a job and/or a visa. wow! a cool new friend, and a person who could quite possibly be an important work/visa connection. the freak sun shower turned out to be a good omen after all.

i looked up at the clouds; like the arm of a polar bear hugging the mountains miles away. when i walked home from work tonight, i breathed in the October air, air that smells the same way across the largest of the world's oceans, my favorite smell of fire and rot, death and rebirth.

persona and poseurism

2006-10-23T07:11:00.000-07:00

after the initial 6 months of hell, the English teaching gig gets pretty easy. mind-numbingly so. i can recycle my old lessons again, moments of silence don't freak me out as if class is a dead party i'm hosting, and i've learned how to effectively pretend to give a flying ratsass when a supervisor calls to harp on about textbook sales or other such profit whorey crap. my job does not fall into the "stressful" category.

but for some reason i end some days completely exhausted. am i getting bored with my own lessons? perhaps. am i tired of making money for a company that's going to run itself into the ground within the next 5 years out of sheer idiocy no matter what i do? HELL yes. that's a big reason why it gets to me, but it's not the main one. and i think i may have stumbled on a big clue this week.

almost any job requires a certain degree of falsity, of projecting an image of "professionalism" that runs so incongruently with who you really are, of being a purveyor of utter complete bullshit. that is one of the world's only immutable truths. but eikaiwa teaching takes that bullshitting to a whole new level, because you have to somehow learn to integrate it with truth. see, companies and schools want "professionalism." but we as teachers have to pander to the students. and most of them want something completely different. some of them want a drinking buddy, some want a drill sergeant. some want a performing monkey, others want a therapist. they want a relaxed atmosphere, but we have to give it to them in a cookie cutter Ikea edifice that looks like a combination of a Starbucks and a sanitarium.

on wednesdays i teach a girl named Asami who goes to the university here in Beppu. she's almost like a little sister to me; we've had some good conversations despite her relatively low speaking level. i told her that i sing angry, loud shit at karaoke. "oh, no Chris-sensei! my image is you dress in beautiful clothes and rike quiet kurassikaru (classical) music." i laughed and told her that, no, actually i like to wear ripped jeans and ratty thrift store t-shirts and sing "Zero" by the Smashing Pumpkins at karaoke. but nonetheless, she'd bought the bullshit. hook, line and sinker.

compare that with Shin, another uni student i teach on Saturdays. he's not so much a student as a drinking buddy (which is totally allowed, even encouraged, in my company). he probably learns more English by coming out and drinking with the foreigners than he ever would in my class. that's probably why most days he doesn't come to class, he simply sends me a text message that says "not coming to class. hangover. wanna drink later?" and that would be his real lesson.

but he actually showed up last Saturday. i went through all the motions, all that communicative method crap that i slavishly adhere to because it's my job, but the whole time i was thinking... "dude. Shin once made sure i didn't puke on my own shoes after we bombed a few Jaegermeisters at Uotami. and here i am, pretending to be a teacher or something. what a goddamn joke."

and the crazy thing is, i'd probably teach better and my students would learn more if i could just cut the whole "professional" bullshit and have fun with them. and you know what else? i guess being All Things to All People can be pretty stressful after all.

Tokyo

2006-10-21T23:01:00.000-07:00

Asscrack of Dawn

The first few peeks out the windown of the bus i took of Tokyo's outskirts were about what i had expected to see-towering high rises housing the throngs of denizens in the world capital of white collar urban indentured servitude. the sky, a pre-dawn smoggy grey. welcome to Tokyo.

after getting to the bus depot at Tokyo station, i waited a few minutes for the station restaraunts to open their gates. my "moruningu setto" of decent coffee and a positively god-awful excuse for a panini sandwich it was like rancid Taco Bell meat mixed with government surplus school cafeteria lunch cheese wrapped in soggy Wonder Bread, a vile enigma wrapped in nostalgia. over that, i pored over my Lonely Planet Japan book and stole glances at the patrons.

for overworked, overrushed white collar slaves, they look pretty leisurely. there's a salaryman taking his sweet time with a tabloid newspaper, another with a comic book. an elderly couple leafing through a guidebook. another businessman has been out cold since i arrived, his arms sprawled out across the table. none of the staff seems to care. he's still asleep when i leave an hour later.

with a walk out to the Imperial Palace, i see still more office workers. one's stopping to stare at the swans in the palace moat (hehehe there's a palace with a moat in the middle of Tokyo, that's so cool!). another worker in a black suit is conducting the iPod Symphony Orchestra as he ambles down the path with his eyes closed. another rather elderly looking one is e-mailing on his cell phone.

these people find some cool ways to handle stress.

Baseless in Harajuku

it's raining. i'm cold and i'm wet. my jeans, the only ones i've brought, are starting to take on a wet dog/stale cigarette smell. i'm sitting in a damn Starbucks of all places, watching the people go by outside the window; there are lots of people out in spite of the rain. most of them are much too fashionable for raincoats. i couldn't find a manga cafe to sleep or shower in. Tanya (the friend i'm staying with) won't get off work until 8, which means i have no place to sleep or shower, sleep or sit until then. and to top it off, i can't get a hold of Yuta to at least keep me company until Tanya gets off work.

hmm. Yuta, a bona fide drunk with his surprisingly low English speaking ability (that's probably much better than he lets on), cheeky smartass charm, simultaneously soft-spoken and intoxo-noxious, reasurring and inaccessible, flaky and calculating, unintelligible and intuitive, loves and loathes himself much like Japan itself. i can't remember at what point he went from an amusing platonic drinking buddy who liked to hit on me nonstop, to a guy i sit and brood over in a Harajuku Starbucks. and i hadn't consciously missed him for most of the summer; it's just when he comes staggering back into my life does all that abscence hit me like standing up from one of those 2-hour shochu benders we'd had in Kagoshima..... cut back to my birthday a week earlier, when he was in Beppu for a visit.

"Tokyo de, ne?" he told me as the drunken haze ascended over our tentative embrace. Tokyo de. he would be with me in Tokyo. the Japanese language has such a way of squeezing so much implication into a few sentences. he's holding back again, just like in Kagoshima after i'd sat on a train that reeked of piss for 5 hours and braved a Meet The Parents (Who Don't Speak Any Fucking English Whatsoever) awkwardness just to visit him. now what in the hell would i do that for? could it be i actually have feelings for the guy who, on our first date, introduced me to people as an "Aeon teacher from Canada" (i'm a GEOS teacher from the States), and got too drunk to speak English. why? who the fuck knows why. probably for the same reason expats stay for years on end in a place that hates them.

but in any case, shit happened like it does and the meeting i had envisioned didn't happen and i was severely disappointed about that. maybe it was just his nonsensical way of avoiding another dramatic goodbye like on the Kagoshima train platform.

ugh. why do i do this to myself? i am free to go anywhere i choose. i came to Japan last June, and i jetted up to one of the biggest, most mythologized cities in the world with my phone and all of my contacts sitting in my bag to go with me--and yet i may as well be in 1955 waiting by the phone for That Guy to call and say "say, let's get some root beer floats in Shibuya. it would be swell!"

well fuck that. i'm going out in the rain, and i'm going to Meiji Jingu shrine.

Meijin Jingu Shrine is sublime in the rain, really. no throngs of tourists to contend with, it's a sacred place with holy water mist wafting from the sky, cleansing me and the sooty city of Tokyo. let it go, you're going to get wet. you're going to get cold. and you're going to get hurt. but pass through the forest and the Torii gates and you will be healed.

My Host's Impending Deportation

i've always wondered about the power of intention and what you really want to happen--do those things have a way of happening according to your true wishes?

Tanya, much as i love her dearly, is a victim of full-on Expat Syndrome. Expat Syndrome is best explained by the following dialogue:

Expat Syndrome-ite: This place is a goddamn joke. the people are idiots, the language is stupid and you can't get any good cheese in this country.
You: okaaayyy.... so uh, how long have you been here?
ES: 5 years.
You: so if this place sucks so much, why don't you leave?
ES: don't be stupid.
You: no seriously, look. you're not married or anything, and you're stuck in a dead-end job. you had the balls to leave your home country in the first place, so why stay here?
ES: ...... (sigh) you just don't get it yet, do you?

indeed, foreign places do have a way of sucking, in more ways than one. they suck time and life force out of certain individuals, and the conscious mind wouldn't have it any other way. they keep people here like gravity, a whirling vortex of cynical xenophobia, a proverbial line of chalk drawn around you in a box shape and a whisper in your head saying "YOU MUST NOT LEAVE THIS BOX"-- maybe that's when the subconscious steps in. maybe that's why Tanya did the seemingly illogical thing that she did....

since you're likely to be completely confused by the musing of the last 2 paragraphs, let me give you some background. my friend Tanya, a graduate of a university here in my adopted city, did what many do after graduating from a Japanese university--go to Tokyo to seek her fortune (or her poverty. whatever). she attained enough fluency in the Japanese language in the past 4 years to secure herself a job with a Tokyo travel agency, work to tide her over until she started her own business. she'd been working illegally since her graduation in March, and her company was in the process of filing for a work visa.

until the day she up and decided she couldn't take it anymore--she had no choice but to quit her job right in the middle of the application process. her company stopped the application, much to her chagrin and that of her friends, her lover, and her potential business partner. Tanya is a smart girl, fluent in 5 languages and blessed with enough savvy (as much as i hate that word, i can't think of a better one) to royally screw her employer over. why then.... WHY would she do something like this? if she had only waited another week, hell probably even a day, she would have had her visa, and she could nor only have quit, but also photocopied her ass and placed it in an advertisement for her agency in Hello Work and there would've been fuck all that her former employer or Immigration could do about it. IF she had waited for ONE MORE DAY. but--

"i couldn't wait anymore. my boss he's.... he's just a bad person and Japanese companies are ridiculous. i couldn't wait anymore."

i didn't judge her verbally. i didn't say what i was thinking, which was "what the hell were you thinking?!" because i knew the truth. she wanted to get out, and this was the only way. deportation. exile.

the only way out of the self-imposed exile of Expat Syndrome is to have your host government impose real exile. become physically removed from the chalk box.

Ueno and the Bitchiest Hippie Ever

i spent my last day in Tokyo a bit drained from Tanya's visa tribulations and giving up on seeing Yuta. i went to Ueno, a place reportedly less fashionable than Shibuya or Harajuku. good. that's more my style. Ueno is not the place for a wild night out in Tokyo, but it looked like that wasn't going to happen for me anyway. so i started looking for a place i might have a quiet drink... when i noticed a small chalkboard advertising the "Space Cake Cafe."

i was intrigued. follow the White Rabbit.

there was a dizzyingly winding staircase leading to a basement bar that was more than a bar. they had postcards from far off locales, Patagonia fleeces for sale, and an aquarium tank full of... paraphenalia. and presumably the goods to go with it.

now, this wasn't exactly a foreign thing to me. in fact, this was something from home that i kinda missed (and when i say "kinda missed," it means i fucking fiend for that shit and curse the US postwar occupation for convincing Japan that an inoccuous, naturally occurring plant is satan in arboreal form). but i knew that this was not Amsterdam, not Phuket, not Vancouver, not Happy Herb's Pizza in Phnom Penh; hell it wasn't even Meadville, Pennsylvania. it was Tokyo and i was a foreigner. and man do they love picking up foreigners for any remote association with drugs around here. plus i was alone. my instinct said to run, but i didn't want to lose face. so i did the only sane and sensible thing i could think of.

i ordered a gin and tonic and sat down.

my first sips were leisurely, read over a very educational French magazine all about cultivating mushrooms. until i could feel the eyes of the barmaid burning into me like microscopic embers. i got the distinct feeling that i was not welcome there, that i was a liability.

i chugged the rest of the gin tonic, paid the lady, and ran back up the spinning staircase into the Ueno night. with paranoia like that, who the hell needs weed anyway?

Tokyo--Final thoughts

after 3 days here, i still don't quite know what to think about it. i certainly didn't have the idealised Lonely Planet experience of Tokyo with the neon lights of Shibuya and the obnoxious Americans in Roppongi. no, i got something different. i got rained on, heart hurt, and a slice of a Same Shit Different Day existence there. and for some odd reason... i can't wait to go back there again to see it on a better day.

Kyoto

2006-10-16T05:52:00.000-07:00

last time i promised the 2nd installment of Summer Sonic, complete with Metallica.

well tough shit. i got lazy. this entry is all about the Kyoto and Tokyo trip i took a few weeks ago. i might finish Summer Sonic sometime though... if i feel like it.

the Beppu Osaka ferry, revisited

the most god-awful overpriced greasy noodles i've had in recent memory began this trip. whoever thought that serving godawful greasy cold pseudoChinese hokkein noodles on a boat is a good idea is obviously the lucky recent recipient of a frontal lobotomy. almost as catatonic, their drool almost as translucent, as one who chooses to eat such a meal, and pays nearly 500 yen for it.

there's something depressing and slightly (alright, more than slightly) pathetic about eating alone. i'm a big condoner of solo travel, but it's the single serving dinners (if i may allude to Fight Club) that'll kill your soul and rot your brain faster than greasy MSG. and yet here i am, pretending to be fully engrossed in Kerouac over my godawful greasy cold MSG coated noodles like some kind of mysterious intellectual gaijin. unlike the last boat ride, there are no infinitely more outgoing travel companions to attract the creepy drunk Japanese shipping company guys freely dispensing cheap sake in a carton like last time. "keep away, for i am just one step away from being a creepy raving vagabond," says my aura. "don't you even fucking THINK about being a cow on my fast track to insanity."

and yet Japan has to be the ideal place for solo eaters. as i look around, about half of the people here are enjoying their single serving dinners. most restaraunts have counter seating to avoid the feeling of a vast range of formica desolation out in front of you. nope, you go elbow to elbow when you eat alone, close enough to stab someone's cornea with a chopstick, but never to speak to them.

unfortunately, there is no such counter style seating in the ferry cafeteria. blast and damnation.

i slept about as well as i had expected to on that damn ferry. it was less crowded this time, but it had the same mildly amusing Japanese quiz show on the overhead TV, and the same cruel green exit light shining in my face all night. and inexplicably sound asleep elderly women snoring in my ears. but hey, i got transportation and a night's accomodation for 7000 yen. insane MSG dreams and fallout green lights in my face were but a small price to pay for passage to the cultural cradle of Nihon.

Ohayou Kyoto

Daylight and a local train from Osaka Port brought me to Kyoto Eki, a space-age soaring atrium of modern transportation. or so it liked to tell itself. there are travellers with bigger backpacks than they could possibly need, tourists with hard-shell Samsonite and hotel reservations (reservations? HA!), young salarymen in suits (kids in black Armani straightjackets), schoolkids on field trips, and people with Kendo sticks in long cases. my breakfast is melon-pan, yogurt, pineapple juice and weak coffee from AMPM, eaten while observing the frentic chaos that rushes at 730am on a Sunday morning in Kansai.

a "night person" to the core, i feel something for "morning people" that straddles awe, admiration and derision. those perky fuckers and their sunny outlook on life, they get on my nerves. during the summer in Beppu, it's a rare night that i get to sleep before 230am, a rare day i can bring myself to greet with a guttral groan and slap to the snooze alarm before 11 (and that's on weekdays; weekends it's more like 1 or 2 if i'm hung over. which i usually am). but somehow travelling solo invokes in me that Ben Franklin spirit of "early to bed and early to rise" bullshit, awakening in me the realization of a whole world alive in the mornings when i can do nothing but stay unconscious out of sheer spite.

i mean.... on normal days there's nothing to look forward to but Same Shit Different Day (ah, the nouveau mantra of Benny's "early to bed"). but away from home (wait, Beppu is "home?") there are unfamiliar noises and stresses and uncertainties and wonders to shake me awake. there's the physical exhaustion and throbbing in your feet and calves from a day of exploring, the mental toll of days spent in Zen meditation and temples (replicas), and on crowded buses. it's exhausting, pondering the fact that people live--they LIVE!--Same Shit Different Day existences in these great ancient capitals of the world. there is indeed a person behind the Mickey Mouse mask at Disney World.

after a short accomodation hunt, my whirlwind and crapshoot tour of Kyoto begins. the Lonely Planet pantheon decrees that 2 days is the "absolute minimum" amount of time to spend in this city. well, sorry. that's what i have. i'm reminded of the time i went to Paris 4 years ago. it was about this time of year, when summer's death rattle puts a chilly vapour into the September breezes. i took one of those whirlwind weekend tours of Paris with a GErman tour group that veritably grabbed us by the hand and ran us through the streets of Paris like a double-decker bus outta hell in 36 hours (it was Rainbow Tours, and i think one of their double-deckers tipped over on a highway a few years ago. but that's just a coincidence). it was like using a moldy, herpes-infected frathouse beer funnel to chug a bottle of aged Merlot, a drink that should be imbibed sip by savoury sip in a snifter. or at least from a shared herpes-infected bottle on the banks of the Seine.

if Paris was funneling Merlot, then my 2 days in Kyoto were going to be like.... aw hell i can't even think of a clever simile right now; the point is i was going to see jack diddly shit of Kyoto in the grander (Lonely Planet) scheme of things. but that's okay,

because i would just gratefully take in whatever Kyoto wants to show to me, like a single cup of green tea and sweets on the coffee table in your inn, while roaring for seared yakiniku. or the goodnight kiss that leaves you aching for something more. that's Kyoto.

there, there's a good simile after all.

Kyoto is a UNESCO labyrinth

Kyoto is home to approximately eleventy million and forty five UNESCO heritage sites. well, like i said i had 2 days. so i had 2 choices--painstakingly plan the most efficient route to as many of them as i could get to, or....

halfassedly amble around town at whim, get lost, wander around lots of milquetoast residential areas with Soviet-esque apartment blocks, all the while hoping to stumble upon a few personages of historical significance and admire the Zen mandala-like journey i took in getting there.

i glanced at the maps the tourist office had given me. finding the "international tourist" office had been a bit of a Zen pilgrimage in itself, tucked away on the 7th floor of the upscale department store attatched to the train station, miles away from the conveniently located office for domestic tourists. but their English was great, and they were every bit as freakily helpful as most in the Japanese service sector are. so... which walking tour to take....

i fumbled around with the walking tour maps, the first of eleventythousand times that day, and found
"Higashiyama Area. Start this walking tour from Gojozaka Bus Stop, heading for Kiyomizu Temple. The approach to Kiyomizu Temple is an attractive winding road lined with touristy bladyblah and lovely foshizzle. From Kiyomizu Temple to Maruyama Park there are woiervnkds and an array of stammygasterdom and shrines. Crossing Maruyama Park keep walking northward to Heian Shrine, whose garden is admired for its cherry and iris flowers in season. "

Eastern Kyoto. Higashiyama-ku. yep, sounds good to me.

Higashiyama was crowded that day, mostly by Japanese tourists but with a healthy dose of gaijin as well. not quite sure where to go, i simply went with the schools of salmon, upstream. hey, throngs of tourists can't be wrong about which UNESCO heritage sites are most worth seeing. the roads diverged--one seemed to logically follow the border of the temple grounds, the other went up into a back street lined with garbage cans and kakidoori (shaved ice) stands. hmmm.... the map seems to say go up the back street. whatev.

this route passed through one of the biggest cemeteries i've ever seen in Japan. looking down at the gravesites carved into a hillside was almost like being a giant, overlooking a typical skyline-- rectangular graves compactly placed jutted about 3 feet up into the air like miniature skyscrapers in a city of the dead. but instead of industrial pollution, the peaceful smell of incense wafted up into the atmosphere. it got me thinking about the power of smells to evoke memories and associations in your brain. my friend Jessy used to burn a strikingly similar smelling incense to cover up the smell of um... other substances that were vapourised in her room at the Spanish house junior year of college. for me, it was the smell of nostalgia, freedom, intellectualism. and secrecy. for the Japanese, it probably makes them think of holy men, shrines, New Year, and the death of loved ones.

after i while of musing i realized that i'd probably veered pretty far off the walking tour, but i didn't care. anyway, there was another temple coming up and i'm sure it was important. so i paid my 500 yen and had a look. the whole complex was huge; i wasn't even sure if it was all part of the same grounds. what struck me about this one was how it was just sort of carved into a hillside and propped up by scaffolding. Japan is such a seismically active place, i wondered how the knees of the scaffolding hadn't buckled when the earth inevitably jerked up with sudden deft force as it often does here, sending the temple falling down like images of California McMansions bellyflopping to the valley below and its Buddhas careening with it. divine intervention? perhaps. or maybe it's a replica.

Entourage in Gion

let me tell you, Zen journeys have a way of rendering one hungry as balls. so i ducked into a random restaraunt during some down time (a great way of avoiding solo dining awkwardness) and got some curry. i sat next to the window facing the kitchen, thinking that was a bit silly since i was in one of the most celebrated cities in the world, but i'd rather have a view of a dingy curry shop with tobacco stained doilies on the tables, but that it was probably rude to sit with my back to the staff. so it was rather odd that i chose that one particular moment to turn around and have a look outside the window--that's when i saw her.

it was sort of like when you're 8 years old and you go to Disney World or Universal or whatever, and there she is in all her heavy L'Oreal and synthetic polyester satin glory--Ariel or Princess Jasmine, or Belle or whatever random princess is suddenly the object of squealing little girls (and a few little boys as well). at Disney World, even at that young age, we knew deep down that it wasn't really Sleeping Beauty, but a representative of her,like department store Santa Clauses. some of us even knew that Snow White was likely some college student named Tammy on semester break from Florida State who wanted some extra cash and had the looks and charisma to spend the summer as a goddess. we had the Doublethink necessary to know that, and even to use it as a source of inspiration--perhaps someday, we could be princesseses for a summer as well.

but here in Kyoto, her name was Hatsumomo or Sayuri, or Mameha (most likely not her birth name), in that chalk-white makeup, artfully bearing the weight of silk and history and waxen black hair and stigma, even her feet carrying wooden geta blocks. she has a line of people, young and old, Japanese and foreign, following her. but unlike the giggling 8 year olds at Disney World asking for Cinderella's autograph, they maintain a safe distance from her out of reverence, awe, perhaps even fear. why? because she's the real deal. she walks the line between fact and fiction, of a world on Earth that gets as close to myth as one possibly can. and she is its envoy.

The Search for Kinkakuji

Kinkakuji Temple is one of the most famous sites in Kyoto, and one of the most famous in all of Japan. it's a golden temple. here, look. see? golden temple. and it seemed, as it's one of the most famous in Kyoto not to mention all of Japan, that i should see it on my first visit. and one would also think i'd be able to find it. well.... the following is the story of how i managed to miss Kinkakuji temple.

i actually had a decent night's sleep at the whatever Ryokan i stayed at for probably more money than i really should have (except when you stop to consider i'd spent the night before on a miserable ferry, and i'd beon a miserable night bus the next) . but it was one of those sleeps that leaves you aching for more... but there was sightseeing to be done and UNESCO World Heritage Sites to be gawked at. in the words of the Beastie Boys, there would be "no sleep til Brooklyn."(or Tokyo. whatever).

at this point i'd abandoned maps altogether and started relying on the bus labels that tell you where it's going. there were no buses for Kinkakuji that i could see... but there were some for Ginkakuji. hmm. interesting. well.... ok, sometimes there are variations on the Romaji spelling for Japanese names, so maybe this was just a bastardization of "Kinkakuji." and in any case, it'd be damn nice to get on a bus and off my feet. so i boarded the Ginkakuji bus. and rode. and rode and rode. finally we reached something that sounded important: Ginkakuji Temple and the Philosopher's Path (hahaha not to be confused with Harry Potter and the Philos-ok fine enough of that shit).

Ginkakuji temple was nice. it had a Zen sand garden and an area of lush bamboo forests (come on, can you really describe bamboo forests as anything but "lush?") and a place to climb up and overlook everything, every splinter in the wood of the temples and every swirl in the Zen sand gardens. i snapped a picture and little white wishies were floating in the air everywhere, a truly magical site. but it wasn't the golden temple i'd set out to find that day. apparently Kinkakuji and Ginkakuji were, in fact, 2 different places altogether.

i headed back down the hill and took the Philosopher's Path next to the canal in order to avoid the throngs of tourist kitsch shops, but i did get an ice cream. damn they have good ice cream in Kyoto. i even passed by something that was either a crime scene, or a television set made up to look like a crime scene; i eventually surmised that it was a television filming set. at the end of the path, i came back out on the street and realized that i had no bloody clue where the nearest bus stop was, or if it even would go to Kinkakuji.

after some considerable wandering around and sitting at a bus stop, i eventually did find a bus going to Kinkakuji. it was clear on the other side of town.... but that's okay, because i'd seen something i wouldn't have seen that day, had i been a bit more of a planner. the bus FINALLY came and... hey look, a seat! awesome! man these things are difficult to get and (*yawn*) this rocking is kinda nice and the glass feels so cool against the side of my head, this map says i have a good half hour before i get to.......

(45 minutes later)

oh fuck. where the hell am i? "Kono basu wa Ginkakuji yuki desu" or something to that effect... which means i'm heading for Ginkakuji. again. i slept through the damn Kinkakuji bus stop and i'm going in the wrong goddamn direction. i look at the clock on my cell phone. 4:30. Kinkakuji will close in half an hour. shit.

on my kotasu, there's a stack of postcards. one of them bears the image of Kinkakuji Temple, shining like the eye of heaven itself. i set out on a journey to find it, and failed. maybe that's what Kyoto wanted. it wants me back, again and again, to discover it on Kyoto's, and my own rambling, unplanned terms.

2006-09-04T07:54:00.000-07:00

the Painted Sunrise

Luke, Tash, Rachel and I kicked back some Asahi pints from Lawson and watched the cedar, concrete and sulfuric steam of Beppu drift away from the deck of the Sunflower, its big neon orange painted sun chasing the real one descending over Beppu Bay. The first drunken, sleepless leg of our quest for rock in Osaka had begun with the sound of the foghorn at exactly 19:00, Friday the 11th.
"Osaka is not Japan," one of my favorite students had told me, "It's another country." Osaka. Just the sound of the word had mesmerised me for months. Osakaa! It was the sound of the breaking point of a nation repressed by manners and etiquette, its marrow oozing out in the form of a cuss-laden local dialect and experimental hardcore. Osakaaa! A drunken mosh pit sucker punch one can only stumble up from with an insane laugh and a punch in the opposite direction. And when applied to the tune of AFI, the Deftones, Avenged Sevenfold and Metallica, OSAKAAA!!!! was the antidote to a melancholic stagnation that had stifled me for months.
Rachel, from New Zealand, has only been here for a few weeks. In expat drifter fashion, we shared things over cans of warming Japanese beer that neither of us would dream of telling a near-perfect stranger back home, but it always seems right somehow when you're in transit. Talking to her was especially interesting because she's still in that "honeymoon" stage of culture shock where everything is new and different, you notice everything in vivid detail like a Zen master, and you're still riding the adrenaline rush of your getaway wave from wherever.
Not that having lived here for a year and 2 months makes me a grizzled expat or anything, but being with the newbs lets me relive those days. At least, the drunken good parts that I care to remember.
Having, erm, beer and sake for dinner didn't do much for my ability to sleep soundly, nor did attempting to go to sleep 4 hours before my usual bedtime of 3am. So, I disembarked with my compatriots and waded into the sticky dawn of Osaka feeling like a wino who'd spent the night in a gutter.
And the weekend was just starting. Fuck. I'm tired. Not to mention hungry as balls.

Where the hell is Osaka?

If I didn't know better, I'd say I was on Main Street in Buffalo on a Sunday afternoon. Osaka was absolutely dead. Not a car in the road, the stoplights do their pathetic useless jobs like elevator ladies. After months of envisioning a pulsating urban chaos, Osaka was thoroughly disappointing. But wait a minute: a night owl to the core, dawn is a time I see only when I haven't yet fallen asleep from the night before. This can really play with your concept of time. It's 7am on a Saturday morning ass-crack of dawn. Like me, Japan likes to sleep in, and most shops and restaraunts don't open until 10 or 11. Man, that really pissed off our grinding GI tracts (did I mention I was hungry as balls?) Finally we found a 24-hour Subway, incidentally one of the only fast-food establishments I ever ate at back at home. I tend to avoid these temples of culinary imperialism, but...
holy fuck that was a good sandwich. like i said, i was hungry as balls.

On the Train

After 4 hours of napping in air-conditioned rapture in my friend Ben's flat, it was time to hit the show. Cosmo Square, the official venue, was reverberating through the tram line, and we could hear (and feel) it 3 stops away. My hands began to twitch like those of an junkie watching his friend cook. Usually laid-back, I began to silently freak out about our leisurely pace to the concert. I HAD to be there, NOW. I cared fuck all what band was on. whoever it was, I was missing the greatest rock spectacle of all time; I was certain of it to my very twitching nerve fibers. Luke made a remark that people could just watch the bands from the giant screen of the Osaka WTC.
Mais non non NON, Monsieur LaPlante. the stage was pulling me like a black hole, and i'd be sick until I was right up there in that parade of chaos, its fervent collective fix.

And Now comes the part where i'm a wannabe rock journalist again

After a ridiculously involved quest for our admission wristbands (they place the gate in Tokyo, or at least it sure as hell seemed like it) our trio found ourselves in the main indoor arena poring over the schedule. apparently the Schedule Gods of Osaka Summer Sonic have some musical vendetta against me, as the put AFI, the Arctic Monkeys and My Chemical Romance all at the exact same goddamn time. Shit! I'm not a huge Chemical fan, but AFI and the Arctic Monkeys went to their respective corners in the music sector of my brain for a grueling deathmatch.
Damnnn..... In this corner, AFI, one of the first bands I got into once I went away to college, away from my sneering Counting Crows and Depeche Mode-loving high school friends. and i STILL haven't seen them live. Whereas the Arctic Monkeys were a recent discovery, but also appealed to my Britrock-loving past that still lived on. what to do!!! LET'S GET IT ON--DING!!!
Davey Havok and his sparkly eyelids and goth-punk won the deathmatch (poor Monkeys, they didn't even see it coming). I made it up to the front of the stage just in time to see Havok's shadow seemingly float into the liquid nitrogen dry ice and audio feedback. then--aahhhhh.... the hit. those raw, raunchy basslines that i love so very very much about AFI so perfectly complement Havok's helium screech. my only complaint was they didn't play a DAMN THING from Art of Drowning or prior. that's how much AFI wants to change its image from its dark, yet high-energy punk fury to Gothic despair. however, the new stuff they played brought back some of that raging punk electricity that i know and love. there may be hope after all.
that scheduling snafu took care of most of the bands i wanted to see on Saturday, so i met up with Luke and Tash. after an hour or so of gawking at this one goth chick and being part of a wastoid utopian community, we headed over to Open Air Stage to see Muse. I'd heard of Muse before from my Britrockophile Japanese ex, and always meant to check them out; live in Osaka seemed as good a time as any. From Britain, they ride the crest of Radiohead's hard, spacey and epic music that's positively made for big arenas like this one. Luke and Tash weren't into it so much, but i was positively mesmerised. ( i have a picture from their set, but haven't figured out how to upload pictures yet. ) the lead singer's voice is reminiscent of something between Liam Gallagher and Thom Yorke. it was so distinctly... British. if i didn't know better, i'd think i was at Glastonbury or Reading, drinking Stella Artois to the Queen... ok, maybe not that far.
a bit dehydrated, i wandered back over to the indoor stages to see Massive Attack with Luke and Tash. i don't know how they found me; finding one person at these things is kind of like finding Waldo, except he's in camo hiding in a jungle.
now, as much as i enjoyed Massive Attack's contributions to the Requiem for a Dream and Matrix soundtracks, their live show just doesn't do it for a fist-pumping mosh junkie like myself. gotta say it was kind of a buzzkill. fortunately, Luke and Tash agreed with me after a while and we ducked out of Saturday's festivities early. we managed to breeze past the teeming masses in line for tram tickets (thank you, THANK YOU OSAKA DAY PASS!!!) and get some orgazmo-fabulous sushi. whoever thought of duck and camembert on a rice ball should be on Iron Chef. seriously.

but wait! we're only halfway done! next time, we'll cover Sunday's Summer Sonic. so stay tuned.

konnichiwa

2006-09-04T07:14:00.000-07:00

it might seem odd that i would start blogging after i've sent in my resignation to my company and am getting ready to leave. well, actually i've been blogging already on another site intermittently, and also using the recycled napkins at Freshness Burger. i just thought i should try to synthesize everything, like my shoebox full of ticket stubs and pictures from Germany that's still sitting in my closet 7000 miles away.