Catching Flies with Chopsticks:
Galvin's Japan Journal
Re: This month's color scheme: Yeah, I got your Valentine's Day right here. (Separate, more timely rant forthcoming)
So then, it's been two days since I updated, which lately, is somewhat of a record. I think it's impressive that I only wrote for the last half of January yet it ended up as long as all the other months' entries. It's also kinda sick, but hey, January was a trying month, all right?
Thankfully, this weekend provided me with exactly the release I needed. I'm not even sure what it was, but it just turned out to be a hell of a lot of fun overall. 300-ish JETs gathered in Hakuba, a mountain town a couple hours from here, for a weekend of skiing/snowboarding and naturally, getting really wasted at some club formerly known as Club Universe. Seeing so many crackers in one place at one time is always a little weird for me, but this weekend I got to see my friends in the area (who I haven't seen for a bit, actually, due to winter break), friends a little farther away, and even some friends in other prefectures entirely (who, for all practical purposes, are usually fairly meaningless), all at once. The whole party on Saturday night ended up being a hell of a lot more fun than it had any reason to be. Despite the fact that I normally eschew dancing in favor of sitting somewhere else and sarcastically commenting on the people who ARE dancing, I somehow ended up dancing till about 4 AM, and in fact was one of the last four people on the dance floor. I'm not at all sure how this happened, especially given how much pain I was in due to my activities during the day -- which shall be described briefly -- which was only amplified by the rum and cokes I was drinking. I guess again, it was just a case of everything falling exactly into place ("everything" in this case meaning lots and lots of water circa 2 AM). Either that, or the many comments I received on my increasingly absurd haircut energized the room.
As for the day, well...that entailed actually snowboarding, which I naturally was fairly wary of since, well, I am not exactly what one would deem athletic or dextrous. Luckily, however, it only turned out slightly worse than I thought it would. I think I only felt my brain smack against my skull once, at most twice, and afterwards only felt SLIGHTLY nauseous for no more than two or three hours. Most of my anticipated wipeouts actually weren't bad -- quite fun, actually -- but a couple times I landed straight on my head, followed by the rest of my body, causing my hat, goggles, and glasses to fly comically off in different directions, like Charlie Brown's clothes do when he's hit by a baseball. As a side effect I seem to have lost the ability to sneeze, but don't ask me how that works. Suffice to say today I am experiencing pain the likes of which I have never known: I can't pull my head up off my pillow without the aid of my arms, which themselves are unable to prop up the rest of body, which itself feels like it has been used to tenderize a really big steak. Still, Trick-AY as it may be, I liked snowboarding a lot more than I did skiing, if for no other reason than skiing has always looked a trifle dorky to me.
Incidentally, Hakuba is where the Winter Olympics were held in Nagano, which makes my snowboarding there somewhat like giving an armless man gloves made of gleaming diamond. I even stayed in the same hotel that the Swiss Olympic team stayed in, as evidenced by the big-ass autographs on the wall of my room. I contemplated adding my own John Hancock to the wall ("Galvin Chow, Professional Tool") but wasn't sure that would go over so well.
Woke up this morning, still felt like walking, creaking death from snowboarding, decided"fuck it," and just went ahead and called in sick. I have 16 more sick days to use in the next half-year; they're mine, so hell with it, I'm gonna use 'em. Besides, I actually do still have a bit o' the flu, have since Friday (which only made snowboarding even more entertaining) -- that, combined with all my aching, adds up to me just not being able to handle roomfuls of screaming children today. They would've eaten me ALIVE.
Coupla funny links. First one via Mooney, a page with screencaps from an Asian bootlegcopy of the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which displays English subtitles that end up about as well as you'd expect. In Mooney's words, "It's probably not Japanese, but who cares, it's funny.
And the second one encompasses just about everything wrong with this country, and by extension, my job. Who on earth allows this shit to exist?
Tutoring job #7,063 (rough estimate) began today, and this student, like way too many others I've had, is ALSO in the medical profession. I'm not entirely sure why I keep ending up teaching medical personnel when the only way to get me anywhere near a hospital is to present me with my own severed legs and verifiable proof that I couldn't just tape them back on; such is the cosmic interpretative dance that is irony. However, unlike the others this one isn't a 30-ish male smelling strongly of cigarette smoke, but a 30-ish female smelling vaguely of fashion magazines. Now I do hate to enforce stereotypes (generalizing, unlike math and karate, is not my strong suit), but this woman, Chieko, is just stereotypically nurse-like as they come. Without being too mean, I get the feeling that I could climb into a big basket hanging from this woman's head and have enough ballast to get me around the world in just about 80 days. If you get my drift.
I really shouldn't be so mean, since she's actually super, super-nice, and totally sociable. But she just kinda strikes me as the kinda person who becomes a nurse only because her career advisor already ruled out secretary and beautician. She also happens to speak just about no English, so as soon as she found out that I speak some Japanese, it was like the English language ceased to exist. Essentially tonight I got paid $30 to practice Japanese, and to be honest it makes me feel a bit like a prostitute since I just received monetary compensation for services that theoretically speaking really benefit the seller as much as the buyer. I won't think about it too much though; I'm much too busy rolling around in these huge piles of money on the floor.
Speaking of disposable income (is there any other kind?), my new DVD player arrived today, and the only thing that would make me happier would be if I actually ever watched movies in my apartment. It doesn't really matter though; regardless of how much I'm actually gonna use the darn thing I figure the only happiness worth having comes in the form of a bunch of circuitry encased in silver or black boxes. I mean hell, it was only a bit more than $100, and it's REGION-FREE, which is my favorite two-word phrase since I was 14 years old and found out what "late bloomer" means. I do adore the thought of actually being able to buy DVDs here now, since that's essentially my main form of comfort-shopping in the States. Of course this also means I can buy all sorts of wacky Japanese DVDs now, like that Ultraman compilation disc I bought my brother a while back. Sure, I'd never watch them, but at least I could display them on my shelf so people can see what media defines me as a person.
By the way, that last sentence was supposed to lead into an entirely separate rant in regards to the tiny (okay, large and obstrusive) poll I've added to the frontpage, but I'm tired so I'll have to save it for another day. Oh yeah, also, Terry McMahon is considering temporarily re-starting his road-trip journal, inasmuch as he is soon to be taking a mini road-trip, so if any of you random readers have any strong feelings on the subject, speak now or forever hold your peace. Remember that Terry's reintroduction to my little corner of the web means that you all will be subjected to my constant, juvenile, really-fairly-offensively/insensitively-worded attempts to get the boy to stop repressing. Furthermore, said barbs will often attempt to stay topical but will likely instead end up making little to no sense. So keep that in mind. In other, completely unrelated news, Terry McMahon's preferences in choosing sexual orifices, much like my new DVD player, could be described as "region-free".
See, now even I don't know what that's supposed to mean.
Welp, time for one of those "It's Saturday mid-afternoon, what the hell else do I have to do" entries. I was all set to do my first-ever piss-drunk update last night at around 3 AM, only stopping when I somehow became cognizant enough to realize how obnoxious that would probably come across. Of course my progress was also hindered by falling asleep drooling on my tatami, but that's hardly the point.
Went out with fellow Saku homies Mark and Paolo last night to a bar called En, which happens to be the one of the very first bars I went to in my town way back in August. Not surprisingly we bumped into many other of the foreigners who live around here (small town, not much to do) so it soon turned into a little international shindig, what with America, Australia, and uh...Canada, represented. It was a good but pretty ordinary evening, highlighted by the colorful antics of the bartender, who lit cigarettes with a blowtorch, did magic tricks involving soft-boiled eggs produced from the other bartender's mouth, and made sure to take a drink for just about every drink he served a customer. I don't think bartenders are actually supposed to drink on the job back in the states, but apparently there is no such rule here. This leads to people like this guy serving you drinks.
Also of interest was the readily visible pervert contingent. A little after sitting down I couldn't help but notice this one sketchy-lookin' guy who looked like he, were he in charge, would move the world economy to a used-panties-based currency. I realize I'm not gonna win any fashion or grooming awards myself, but he had a haircut and ensemble that was the aesthetic equivalent of just writing "PERVERT" on his head in huge letters with marker. At the beginning of the evening I was trying to figure out discreet ways to snap his picture, but of course by the end I practically just ran right up to him and snapped his photo. Go on, tell me this guy's picture shouldn't be on a post office wall somewhere based solely on looking like he MIGHT be a sex offender.
Speaking of sex offenders, a group of (male) 7th graders came up to me yesterday asking me if 'Penis Hunter' was comprehensible English: "Nee, Chow-sensei -- 'Penisu Haantaa' tsujiru?" It makes me so proud to see my students take two English words they already know and combine them into their own, pseudo-English terms (come to think of it, this is probably how Engrish is made). Then they asked me the English for the "stuff that projects from your penis when excited," taking a wild stab at it with "'Penisu water,' OK?" I hesitantly supplied them with the correct vocabulary, it being my solemn duty as an educator and such, and was again surprised as the three of them practically began projecting penis water of their own in glee. Apparently, the word I supplied them with sounds very similar to Japanese slang for an erection, prompting them to launch into an impromptu linguistics debate on whether in this case a Japanese term was derived from English (no, that never happens). And just to make sure I knew what they were talking about, one of them grabbed a sports magazine, pointed to it and said "pretend adult book!", while his friend pretended to read it. Then the third kid, seizing a broom from the cleaning supplies closet, got behind his friend reading the pretend-porno and slooooowly pushed it into the fabric of his pants where the legs met, this producing, I must admit, a rather accurate simulation of a porno-induced boner. Then they ran off, laughing and yelling "Penis Hunter!" and "Semen!" at the top of their lungs, as I wistfully pondered my importance in their young lives as a knowledgeable yet approachable authority figure capable of teaching them the important things in life. One of these days they're gonna get me fired.
In other random news, I checked my e-mail when I woke up this afternoon and found THIS letter waiting for me:
"Galvin-Are you sure you wanted to give me your address and phone number? I could comeand stalk you... >:) or shit, I could be in the fucking apartment right nextto you planning to take you out the minute you go to sleep tonight... oh yesthe possibilities are endless."
The writer of the letter then goes on to affirm that he is indeed kidding, but even if he wasn't, I can't say I'd be terribly concerned. And that isn't some tough-guy, macho, I'm-a-rabid-member-of-the-NRA posturing, it's just that anyone who believes they could find someplace in Japan merely because they have the address quite obviously has never been to Japan before. Street names and address numbers have little to no rhyme or reason behind them here, and are probably determined via random number generator. I've heard that block numbers in each city are actually assigned according to the order in which they were built; so unless you possess some detailed archtectural timeline of my city, good luck finding my apartment. Taxi drivers can't even find places unless you have semi-detailed instructions or at least a list of well-known landmarks. If I wanted people actually to be able to find my place, I'd probably write my address as something like this:
Yamaha Heights
Big Brown Dingy Building
Next to a Supermarket and a Parking Lot
Also There's This Big Porno District Nearby
Not That I, Y'know, Know About It Personally
I've Really Only Just Heard
Yeah uh, Somewhere Around There
381-0015
So anyway, yeah, if anyone wants to stalk me, and actually manages to be successful in doing so, please let me know how you found the place 'cause I'd sure like to fucking know. But maybe I will stop leaving my home address in my e-mail signature file...because who knows, it might end up in the hands of some of the Penis Hunters, and THEN I'd be fucked.
For those of you that check the hit counter on the frontpage as obsessively as I do (and lord help you if you do) -- I'm just gonna go ahead and claim that yes, my page happened to receive an additional 16,000 hits between last night and this morning. No, I certainly did not finally figure out how to change the counter value manually, and no, my loss of six months' worth of hits since making the domain change has NOT been slowly eating away at my self-worth at a disturbingly nagging rate. But, even if that WERE the case, there would definitely be nothing wrong with it since those lost 16,000 hits, which by the way is a rather LOW estimate thank you very much, were garnered fair and square and it's not MY fault stupid Yahoo wiped them all out without telling me. And furthermore, such woefully petty behavior could under no circumstances be interpreted as pathetic compensatory measures for any humiliating sexual inadequacies present in the author. *Ahem* Wow! 16,000 visitors overnight! Pretty impressive, eh?
In other frighteningly neurotic news, if you are a frequent visitor to this site, it is your civic duty to go sign my (now functional) guestbook. Last night I found some 30-odd entries sitting in a heretofore-unknown section of my site management page (why didn't anyone TELL me I need to approve the entries before posting?), thus solving the mystery of why you cruel bastards all seem to hate me. I guess it only APPEARED to be so! To think, all that self-cutting for nothing! Boy is my face, and wrists, red! Self-mutilation is MY anti-drug!
And now that I've once again dutifully entertained you with my increasingly tasteless humor, go to the bottom of the frontpage and sign the damn guestbook, you shit monkeys. And uh, just because I get to approve all signatures before posting doesn't have anything to do with the fact that largely only positive comments will appear. No, nothing like that at all. I'm just VERY POPULAR...shut up. Hey! Self-cutting! You hear me! You want that on your conscience? Self-cutting! Go SIGN ALREADY!!
And uh, just so this isn't yet another one of those updates written entirely about this website itself, I shall tell you about my day yesterday. Uh, lessee. Uh, first, I brushed my teeth, and then, I had some toast...then I went shopping, and, uh...oh yeah, I was supposed to provide support for Paolo on the "Judge The New Boyfriend Over The Thin Pretense Of Dinner" engagement his girlfriend's friends arranged, but some of said friends got sick so it just ended up being me and Paolo drinking Coronas while women cooked for us. Oh yeah, then they did the dishes, too. Then, I belittled the importance of their personal opinions and beliefs and successfully argued that their right to vote was ill-gotten and therefore invalid from here on. Then I burped and farted, and they complimented me on my sexiness. I love this country.
I ate at a Japanese fast-food restaurant called Mos Burger the other day, which is a mistake that shan't soon be repeated. The key phrase in that sentence is "Japanese fast-food," which really should have immediately set off every fucking warning bell in my empty little head. It's not that I'm unwilling to try new things -- remember I've eaten locusts, raw horse, and FUCKING BABY BEES -- I'm just entirely untrusting of Japanese interpretations of familiar foods like hamburgers. Remember that this is a country that sees mayonaisse and the hot dog as two of the most important inventions in culinary history; at least that's my impression since I find both of those fucking things on everything. I can't tell you how many times I've bought an otherwise innocent looking pastry only to take a bite and discover that some insane baker slid a wiener into it as if it actually fucking belonged there. And let's not even get into the abomination of mayo as an everyday pizza topping. It's as if Japanese people have this vague perception that something in Western food tastes good but are horribly inaccurate in determining exactly what. Hence they just try to fake it, like a college freshman loudly proclaiming how stoned he is every 2 minutes without really being sure if he is.
What I'm trying to say is that while Japan has a wonderful array of delicious indigenous culinary delights, any food that was originally invented someplace else should not be approached even with a 10-foot pole. Ironically then, the real problem with Mos Burger, is that its menu presents a sort of bizarre alternate universe where Japan invented the hamburger and screwed up horribly in doing so. Let's take a look at the menu: half of everything on there looks like a normal hamburger came down with botulism and then exploded. I mean, what the shit IS that on some of those burgers? Look at the first one on the left in the second row -- it looks like a goddamn Chia Pet, and you're supposed to eat that? It looks like Lex Luthor gathered these burgers together to fight their good-guy counterparts. And oh look, what's that on the right below the burgers? Hot dogs! What a fucking surprise. And in case you didn't guess, most of that white shit smeared on the evil burgers is, you guessed it, mayo.
Oh, but we haven't even gotten to the worst offenders. Look to the left of the wieners, and you will see an original Mos Burger invention, the "rice burger," which honestly is LITERALLY what the hamburger would look like if invented by Japan, which is to say, a concoction of horrendous evil. I mean, instead of a normal ol' bun we got rice pressed into the shape of a bun and grilled, and in lieu of meat we get some veggie shit that no living thing ever even had to die for. What the shit is that? I have a hard time believing anything is worth eating if one of Mother Earth's creatures didn't have to suffer horribly somewhere along the line. When my friend ate there with me she made a point of ordering that monstrosity simply to nauseate and infuriate me, and succeedly admirably. It's an AFFRONT to the name of burger and has no right to exist. It's EVIL, I tell you. EVIL. You probably don't believe me -- I knew you wouldn't -- so I have taken the liberty of of sitting down one of these "Rice Burgers" for a personal interview, just so you could see how evil it is. Let's take a look:
Me: Now then, Mr. Burger, is that is your real name. What is your stance on abortion and say, killing homeless people for fun?
R. Burger: Raaaar, dead babies fuel for Engine of Satan! Live babies also fuel for Engine of Satan! Raaaadditionally homeless people lazy pox on society who must made serve darjeeling tea to richest 1% of America prior public stabbing death with sharp high heel shoe of Jenna Bush raaaar!
Me: That's very interesting. Tell me, what is your stance on the ongoing worldwide plague known as racism?
R. Burger: I hate Mexicans raaaar.
Me: And is there anything else that you wish to add that could possibly result in your complete character assasination?
R. Burger: Raaar! Evil rice burger endorse Michael Jackson claim that he only sleep with children and not bang them! Raaaar! Make perfect sense to evil rice burger! Raaar!
Me: Fascinating.
And there you have it. Proof positive that the Rice Burger, and by extension its distributor Mos Burger, is pure, distilled evil. And now, to take my leave before it fully sinks in how truly lame that whole schtick was. Raaaaar!
Well, I found myself serving as the appointed translator for the International Curling Festival today, which is funny for so many reasons I don't even know where to start. Okay, for one, curling is stupid. There, I said it. Quite frankly I forgot it even existed, blissfully so, until I was approached with this assignment, at which time I believe I almost immediately begin thinking of jokes I could make about it in parenthetical intermission ("What's the DEAL with curling? Was it invented just so the football team would have someone new to bully?"). I'd like to say I gleaned some deeper understanding of it by the end of the day, but I mean, have you SEEN this shit? Some moron slides a big rock across ice in an overly graceful manner while two of his teammates follow along sweeping, sweepingly desperately at the path in front of it? What the shit is that? They're people armed with brooms chasing a rock. That's not a sport; it's some ludicrous practical joke intended to keep mentally retarded and/or insane people busy for an afternoon. Teams from all over the world will be competing in the neighboring town of Karuizawa this weekend, but for today they got together with local 6th graders to perpetuate this abomination in younger generations of other countries. Seeing as getting involved in curling is the closest one can get to surgically removing one's future sex life, it probably would've been much easier just to hire a team of professional mockers to come laugh at the children in advance.
That's of course not the attitude I was displaying today, since I was serving as an official representative of Japan/America; and I'm proud to say I kept my composure even when I found out I'd have to be translating instructions on the fly in addition to the copy of the opening/closing speeches I had to read. I was a mite nervous about that at first but quickly settled into a nice little groove when I realized none of the Japanese people could understand what I was saying. This left me quite a lot of leeway to entertain the visiting teams, who came from places like Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Korea, America, and uh, Canada. So soon enough I was juuuust skirting the line between being charismatic and a flat-out asshole, like when I translated the line from a 6th-grader's opening speech "I have played ice hockey since I was 6" as "I began playing hockey when I was but a lad of 6 years of age". Then I needed to explain a game where one hand is formed into a circle with the other extending the index finger; it is then played by vigorously thrusting your index finger in and out of the hole formed by the hand of the person next to you. At that point I just outright lost it and amidst fits of laughter, could only manage to groan "I'm not even gonna touch that one" into the mic.
But hey, me instructing two busloads of international curling players how to play vaguely sexual games with children; that'll look impressive on a resume, right? Actually, it probably will: "Served as official interpreter for 2003 International Curling Tournament in Karuizawa, Japan". Snap. And hey, after this and Hakuba a couple weeks ago, I'm finally starting to make the Olympic site-seeing rounds. AND I didn't have to teach today. Not a bad deal, huh? And let's not even get how mystifyingly HOT the female teams from Norway, Sweden and Switzerland were. Gosh, if even their fucking curling teams are that good-looking, I guess the rumors about the women in those places must be true.
Oh, and of course, as if the thought of me randomly ending up at the International Curling Tournament isn't humorous enough, there were of course the usual bits of Japanese wackiness as well. For instance, here's a snapshot of the tournament schedule, showing who's playing who. Okay, so there's Canada, Norway, and Korea, all of which I can find on a map, but take a close look at #4...
Ah yes, the fledgling republic of Super Lovers. I remember how a passionate group of romantics broke off when like, Yugoslavia dissolved or something to form their own nation. Yes, it's all so clear now. How could I forget the Super Lovers, the only country whose national anthem may only be properly sung by pop stars? I tell ya, those Super Lovers, they're the ones to watch out for in curling circles...and in romance.
And yes, before any kanji-readin' smartass or babbling curling fanatic writes me, yes, I know 'Super Lovers' is just the name of a Japanese team. Regardless the mere thought of a Japanese curling team thinking it to be a really swell idea to name themselves the Super Lovers is enough to make me want to crush my own skull with one of those big stones they're all fancy at pushing about. I tell ya, with this, rhythmic gymnastics, and competitive trampoline, it's probably only a matter of time before someone decides getting the lid off a really tightly-screwed jar of pickles should be an Olympic sport too.
Last night was the farewell party for the 2003 International Curling Competition, and naturally yours truly was there. Most of my coworkers in the Board of Ed went out of a combination of work obligations and a need to ogle the female teams from Switzerland, Sweden, and Norway; however your hero and mine, by which I mean me, attended because it meant a free catered meal, and my fridge was empty. Besides, my attending technically counts as working on a Sunday, a contractual no-no, meaning I just racked up a free vacation day (or half-day) to be used at a later day in exchange, essentially just for showing up and seeing how much 5-star hotel food I could fit into my mouth without choking. And oh brother, let me tell you, inasmuch as you are probably a low-class, penniless pauper like myself, have NEVER had food this good. Japanese, Chinese, European, American -- all these kinds of food and more, made by some of the best chefs in the area, all for the taking; MY taking especially since I didn't let pesky distractions like socialization get in the way of my sordid gastronomic orgy. You know that episode of the Simpsons where Homer meets George Harrison but is much more interested in a plate of brownies? Yeah, it was kinda like that; only the people there were no George Harrisons, and brother, the food was hella better'n mere brownies.
For instance, during the boring opening speeches my eye was caught by this ridiculously large piece of bread, and at once my curiosity was piqued -- what was in that stupidly huge loaf of bread? It was stuffed with something. What could it be stuffed with? I mean, with bread that big, that lumpy, something HAD to be in it, right? So what, what could it possibly be? Ground beef? Carmelized apples? Potatoes? Or perhaps, knowing this country, corn and mayonaisse? It was driving me crazy. WHAT WAS IN THAT BREAD? Finally the excrutiatingly dull speeches ended, and as if to signal this, the Chef sliced off the top of the giant pastry, as if dropping the green flag at a race. And what was in that bread was beyond even my wildest imagination: It was stuffed not with beef, or corn, or potatoes, or even smaller pieces of bread stuffed Russian-doll style with yet more bread -- but a WHOLE FUCKING ROASTED TURKEY. My God! Who, WHO I ask, is the culinary Einstein who thought of that?! Why haven't _I_ thought of that? Why haven't YOU? Stuffing not just pussy appetizers but an entire entree into a piece of bread so large it must have been built by Egyptian slaves! It's so absurdly brilliant that the only way to express even a tiny part of my awe and utter appreciation was to shove people out of line and go back for 4 or 5 helpings. Oh God, the only thing that could have made that giant turkey-roll even more decadent would be Oliver Twist coming to life and showing up just so I could kick him in the face. "You want some more, bitch? Huh? Do ya? YOU WANT SOME MORE??!"
Lordy me. Curling games, five-star cuisine, snowboarding at Olympic sites -- what kind of yuppie asshole am I turning into lately? Well, don't worry, peasants, because not ALL was well and good last night. In fact, things took a turn for the embarassingly shitty when one of my 40-ish co-workers got drunk and decided to drag me around the room making me translate his drunken advances on various members of the female curling teams. Oh sweet Moses, THAT was embarassing. I just kinda stood there trying to communicate shame, embarassment, sympathetic bemusement, sincere apology, a strong past record of not being a pervert, AND a stern desire to spontaneously die, all via my eyes, as my co-worker tried to pick up women of various European descent with lines like "Thank you...playing with children for us!" and "Congratulations curling! I like skiing!", elbowing me every few seconds to prompt him with the English for words like "pretty". I don't think I've ever seen anyone look so uncomfortable as the Swiss or Norweigan girls he was hitting on; I get the feeling they thought the same thing -- and possibly worse -- when looking at me. I just stood there, trying to make my unwillingness to be there very apparent -- I tried to look NOT like a pervert, in other words. However, I'm not sure how successful I was. I mean, if you saw one guy beating a kitten with a rake and another guy just standing there twiddling his thumbs, you'd think they were BOTH equally bad regardless of who was doing the actual beating. Guilt by association; it's an ugly thing.
I did actually got a few very audible "THANK YOU"s when I finally managed to drag him away, to the point where I probably could have hit on these girls myself with a fair amount of success. However, priorities are priorities, and there was yet still giant turkey-rolls that desperately demanded eating.
Title's an obscure Critic reference; never mind. Now then, on to business.
Now while I have no book to hawk; I now do have, as some of you may already be aware, merchandise of a different nature available. But in case you haven't noticed the blaringly ugly plug for the brand spankin' new Kind of Crap T-shirt on the frontpage, well uh, go look at it. Then go over to the store at Engrish.com and buy the shirt. Then buy more shirts, and then set them all on fire, or give them to orphans, or give them to orphans then set THEM on fire; I don't care, just as long as you have an excuse to buy more. And while I'm telling you to do stuff, for god's sake, go shave those ugly sideburns; you look ridiculous. P.S. Buy the shirt.
Or, if you don't wanna buy the shirt, then feel free to just send me the 50 cent royalty fee I get per shirt sold. Whichever's easier for you, I don't care. I accept payment in the form of check, money order, or the soft, soft flesh of your youngest, sweetest daughter, who to me looks not unlike a beautiful porcelain doll. Yeah, I stole that joke too; I don't care. I'm in full-out pimp mode, and pimps only care 'bout making the sale. Buy my book. I mean shirt. I'm getting confused. Buy the schmook. Book. Fuck.
I believe I've reached a new low in the site-updates-solely-about-the-site realm. Speaking of which, hey, 20,000 hits. Aren't you happy for me? To celebrate, you should buy my shirt; which is available in sizes like medium for the girly amongst you, all the way up to XL for the blubbery bastards picking Oreos out of their beards as they read this. The shirt is made of special color-variable fabric that enables it to actually change color over time; when you first buy it it will be the same lovely sky blue hue as my frontpage, however after about 3 washes or so you will marvel at how it will alter itself to a paler hue so it never gets boring! You change over time, why shouldn't your clothing? It's the clothing technology of the future, today! All for just the low-price of $16.99, which even at your menial, minimum-wage job can be made in a matter of mere hours. I mean, what's more important, vaccinations for your child or lookin' fiiiiine? How could you pass up an offer like this? I contend that you cannot.
Hey, I was watching David Letterman the other night. Hey, speaking of Top Ten lists, I thought of 10 things you can do with my shirt, after you buy it:
10. Wear it; thus completing Phase 1 of Operation Replace Galvin
9. Sew into flag; start new self-derogatory country
8. Earn appreciation of firing squad you are in front of due to 'target' design
7. Flashy design calls attention away from aesthetic abberation known as your face
6. Shamefully pick off floor after hideous alcohol-induced one-night stand with first cousin
5. Commit very visible major crime while wearing shirt; automatically have suspicion thrown onto me instead due to prior association with shirt
4. Bunch into ball and stuff under shirt for hilariously realistic 'pregnancy' visual effect
3. Tie off ends, fill with old doorknobs; riot
2. Express love of ironic counterculture by purchasing and wearing mass-produced product advertising ironic counterculture
1. Still remain virgin forever; yet look good while doing so
Whoof! For the first time in my life, I feel like I've pimped enough. I am dreadfully sorry about today's rather well, dreadfully sorry update. Please understand that I'm quite new to this selling out thing and thus it's very exciting for me; it's not every day one gets the chance to barter away his soul for mere pennies per unit sold. Anyway, thanks for indulging the terrible subtleties of my salesmanship techniques today. I promise I'll keep the pimping from a minimum from now on. I swear.
On a completely unrelated note; the following link may look like the electronic order form for the official kindofcrap.com T-shirt, but is in actuality a webpage that lets you send money directly to Jesus merely by clicking on the "order" button. I mean, you DO want to get into Heaven, don't you?
P.S. Buy my shirt.
I admit: I don't really feel like doing an update right now. But it's an Office Day, I have nothing else to do, and I am a slave 4 my adoring reading public (by which I mean, all dozen of U).
Well there is pathetically little going on in my life at the current hour so in lieu of anecdotal amusement howzabout we just see if we can't get a little rant happenin' about something here. I've been my normal, happy-go-stupid self lately on the outside, but for whatever reason I have been a simmering crockpot of passive rage on the innermost side. And I'm not even sure why. Maybe it's because on Monday, my beloved Seiyuu, the supermarket next door, is closing, leaving me screwed grocery-wise. I believe I shall express my dissatisfaction with the situation by eating at 7-11 for every single meal until a new grocery store opens next door to me. Although, last time I was in Japan I actually did do that, not so much out of rage as laziness, and I ended up losing about 12 pounds in about a month. And that does suck, but not rant-worthy right now. Let's try something else.
Oh, here's something for the aspiring sociologists out there: so there's this dumb fucking seal that showed up in a Yokohama river or something, dubbed Tama-chan, which quickly turned into a national sensation as cute oddities in this country are wont to do. Everyone's talking about cute little Tama-chan; no country is as open to the form of large-scale hypnosis known as The Fad as Japan. The citizens have of course recognized the huge potential within their new little mascot to attract tourists and are intent on keeping him in the river despite it not being its natural habitat. And though I could get mad about this as an animal rights issue; I feel reluctant to do so since given the chance I would gladly beat the little blubberball to death with a broken TV antenna. I wouldn't even really care about the whole thing, actually, since I'm getting pretty used to the whole annoying obsession with "cute" in this country ("Neeeee, CHOU kawaaaiiiiiiiii!!!!!!"). However, they just had to piss me off by going one step further: they gave the little freeloading bastard Japanese CITIZENSHIP. Now, this may just seem like a cute little stunt to you, but keep in mind Japanese citizenship status cannot be attained by foreign PEOPLE; yet this fucking SEAL gets it? There's tons of second or third generation residents in Japan who are DENIED citizenship simply because they are not of Japanese descent, but this fucking SEAL gets it? I mean hell, on a personal level -- yeah, it ain't perfect but I'm sure I speak better Japanese than a goddamn seal, I'm sure I know more about the surface portions of the country as well; yet he's the one who gets to legally vote. So technically, I and other foreigners rank lower than a fucking sea animal that eats fish heads. By the way, here's a pretty good article on the whole thing, and an arranged, irony-based protest against it. I'm actually thinking of going to it, but let's face it, I probably won't feel all socially unheaval-ist by tomorrow.
Ah, that felt good. I am rather fond of this country but in a lot of ways, it really is pretty frickin' backwards. Not quite outta steam yet tho, so let's change gears once again.
Anime. I been meaning to go on this rant for a while, even though in doing so I'll probably alienate half of my readership. But first let's get one thing straight: I don't hate anime. I think 95% of it is cliched, poorly-produced, schlock crap, but I don't hate it. I think its rabid fans routinely mistake violence for maturity, sexuality for sophistication, convolution for depth and intricacy, pat cuteness for good storytelling, high-pitched squealing for skilled voice-acting, and well, style for substance. But I don't hate the people who watch it. At the end of the day, those are just my opinions, and just as I am you are entitled to your own as well. I hate when people tell other people what to like. You can like what you'll like, and I'll like what I like, and I'm fine with that. When you get right down to it, I like some pretty geeky shit too, so I'm not about to be a hypocrite by writing off an entire art medium and its proponents. So anime? Fine by me. Anime fans? Also fine by me. However, people who obsess over it?
Now them, I hate.
Actually, anime is just one of the prime culprits; this goes far beyond it. I hate when people obsess about ANYTHING, be it anime, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, two-word titles beginning with "Star", cars, guns, sports, particular musicians, movies, TV show or video game systems, or for that matter, whatever gender they happen to be sexually interested in. Tell me -- what is it about people that they find it so hard to just plain LIKE something, without necessarily OBSESSING over it? Are you people so devoid of personality that you feel the need to define yourselves as people by the things you like? What's wrong with saying "I find anime interesting"; why's it have to be "as you can see, my walls are covered in anime posters, my book shelves are full of anime toys, my video collection is 85% anime, my AOL screenname is anime-themed; furthermore the my exact views on life are perfectly encapsulated in episodes #16-23 of Cowboy Bebop"? Why can't people just like things instead of having them become pathetically integral parts of our lives? Is it because you have no real personality to speak of so one must be constructed of bits and pieces of pop-culture someone else made? Or am I wrong here? Or do people actually sit down and say, "Hm, there's not much else to me so I'm just gonna really like cars and talk about that all the time"? Do they say "Y'know, I bet by memorizing all these baseball statistics I'll be really unique"? "Strapping on these Vulcan ears will give me somewhere to belong"? Anyone? Can't we just be ourselves and be fine with that, without needing to find some overreaching group of which to be a part; take THAT, East Asian Society at my college?
Now, if any of you reading this feel like I've just described you pretty exactly, and feel you can intelligently inform me why I am wrong, then please, feel free to write me and say as much. I honestly just don't get it. But I guess what I'm saying is: Liking Harry Potter, fine. But those people at my college who dressed up on Sunday mornings and "played" "QUIDDITCH", I cannot condone.
Ugh. How is it that just a few hours ago I was having one of my best weekends in recent memory but now feel like absolute shit? Oh yeah, that's right. I haven't slept for 32 hours. But whoo, was it worth it. Made a jaunt up to Tokyo to escape the frigid Nagano weather, met up with quality folk from Gunma (you mean there are OTHER prefectures in Japan?), and partied at Club Xanadu into the wee hours of the morning; when they closed we moved somewhere else and partied until oh, 10 AM. All in all it was a straight 8 hours or so of dancing, followed by my hopping a bullet train back home trying desperately not to fall asleep and miss my stop. Anyway despite the current woozy pain I am in, it was indeed a blast, primarily for chemical reasons I shall leave unnamed. Well, this "Dude I'm a foreigner I get wasted in Japan!" line o' babble gets real old real fast, so let's just let a picture do several thousand words' worth of talking:
Yeah, I look totally non-idiotically sober. I don't even know who that guy on the right IS. As a side note, I am almost staggeringly good looking.
Now see, I don't know if regular readers have noticed a change in tone of this journal lately, but ever since I re-signed my contract I've been slowly turning into a more stereotypical JET in that weekends are now mostly spent trying to forget where the hell I am. I used to be pretty content with my job and situation, but adding another year on to my contract seems to worsen the bad parts of being here while marginalizing the good. I mean, the bad will likely stay bad or become worse while the good I'll eventually just take for granted. Hence, weekends now are more of an escape than perhaps they've ever been; especially ones like this one where I get zero sleep and fuck with my brain feel absolutely like entirely different worlds. And I can't say that that's necessarily an undesirable way to see things. Nor entirely unintentional, for that matter. But what do I know; I'm on downers right now.
And of COURSE, one of ride back, on the home stretch of the local train, of course, OF COURSE one of my junior high students pops up next to me. And not just any student, but one who clearly has some pretty major problems at home or with his mind, seeing as a few weeks ago I had to put him in a full-nelson to restrain him from kicking the female English teacher. Anyway, after the standard "Chow-Sensei? What are YOU doing here (as if teachers/foreigners never ride the train)?", I of course returned the question. He answered "shopping," and then produced a huge, thick manual about how to find good apartments in every part of Japan. He's only a 7th grader so naturally I asked if perhaps he was jumping the gun a bit. He replied, "If you can, it's something that should be decided as soon as possible," in just about the creepiest manner imaginable. Now my mind was still pretty frazzled at this point so I didn't really make the connection, but when getting off I had the presence of mind to at least ask him if he was on his way home at the moment. He said yes, I hope he meant it. I'm at his school again on Wednesday; guess it's time to hold a little meeting regarding that one.
Y'know, while I'm on the depression train, I may as well toss out this l'il tidbit that I've been trying to bring up for a bit: the bodies of one of my 3rd graders and her little sister were found in the woods recently. They'd been missing for a few weeks so I'd kinda been assuming the worst, which, it would seem, has indeed come to pass. However, I was actually pretty relieved when it turned out not to be murder. I mean, normally you hear 'body in the woods' y'think some pretty grisly stuff. What they think happened in this case is that the children saw a deer, chased it into the woods, then got lost and couldn't find their way out. No visible injuries, deer tracks all around them in the snow; sounds reasonable to me. Obviously this is a pretty sad scenario, but since I was expecting something far more violent and disturbing, I was actually kind of relieved to hear this. Do not mistake this for discounting the tragedy of the situation. But I just feel it's bad enough that the parents already have to deal with the loss of their two little girls; at least they don't have to live with the knowledge that someone deliberately TOOK their lives from them -- someone who might still be out there, to boot. I realize they would probably find that to be small consolation. But I also think it might help them find their peace just a little bit faster. I hope so, anyway.
And on a fairly controversial note -- while I think Columbia was indeed a tragedy; some part of me was actually relieved when I found that "only" 7 people died. That sounds horrible, I'm sure. But hear me out. I'm going to avoid the "lots more people die everywhere else in the world every day" argument, since it's kinda well, a crock -- but, and I'm not sure if this is indicative of my condition or the world's (or perhaps both), I just feel like in recent times the bar has been raised for tragedies. I'm sure many of you probably think I'm an insensitive prick by now. But I'm sorry, all I know is, the last time I turned on CNN and saw "SPECIAL ALERT" bulletins flashing everywhere, a lot more than 7 people lost their lives. Again, I am not by any means discounting any loss of life be it 7 or 23,000 or 4 billion. But sometimes, it seems all we can truly hope for is the best of the worst-case scenarios.
Well, my beloved Seiyuu, the sweet supermarket-next-door, finally closed its doors yesterday, and perhaps as a result I picked up my meal tonight from the fine chefs at 7-11 Pre-prepared Comestibles Plant #3667. Actually, I was just too lazy to wash my one pot but now having no supermarket within 20 feet of me seemed like excuse enough to eat crap for dinner. Man, I just can't believe the Seiyu is gone. Once again, small, quaint, and sweet loses out to modern, cold, and rich. If I was Archie, it'd be like Veronica just burned down Betty's house and turned her onto heroin. And then something happens involving a supermarket, and I end up eating at the Riverdale 7-11 a lot. I think I'm mixing my metaphors again.
I didn't mention it earlier, but while I was in Tokyo this weekend someone actually tried to pick a fight with me. It wasn't anything major, just some overly drunk Belgian guy who figured I was deceiving him by pretending to be an American, and became extremely belligerent when I refused to speak fluent Japanese. He started trying to twist my arms and even began kneeing me in the crotch (thankfully pretty lightly). Now, it's worth mentioning that I've almost never been in any sort of physical confrontation. In grade school, obviously, I was always on the nerdy side of the fence but always bland enough to stay under the radar of bullies. It's also worth mentioning that I do not exactly cut a physically imposing figure and my getting in any sort of fight would likely result in getting my head handed to me, and that's assuming someone managed to dig it out of my own ass with a backhoe. Despite all this, however, there was a part of me that wanted nothing more than to just rear back and tear into the guy. He really wasn't much bigger than me and was pretty drunk besides, so I was pretty sure I could have got in at least one good shot before someone pulled us apart (and the bartender WAS eyeing us). I mean, there I was, with someone giving me an excuse, someone just ASKING to help me relieve some stress. Even if I got fucked up I just knew I could have at least given him something memorable. Thankfully, the sane portion of my brain, hammered as it's been, managed to prevail, and I swallowed my pride, calmed the guy down a bit, and walked away. He did keep glaring at me but got distracted and forgot about me in approximately 2 seconds. So I mean, I know I did the right thing. It did feel good to be the bigger man. Still, when I walked away I deliberately did so with my back turned, almost hoping he'd take a cheap shot, and give me my justification.
I taught at the school where the little girl who died in the woods used to go to today. There's a nice little shrine with flowers and hundreds of little paper cranes set up for her. In an almost heartbreaking little touch, they're even still setting out what would have been her portions of the school lunch on a little orange tray on the display. The tiny servings of chicken, bread, and soup, as well as that miniature little carton of milk, in that juxtaposition, is just goddamn heartbreaking. At the same time, I can't help but hope she's getting much better stuff than school lunches to eat in heaven.
And now for some contextually uncomfortable flippancy: do you think Japanese heaven is more regimented and structured than the Western version?
You know, given the general tone of this and the last entry, this month's color scheme is proving much less ironic than I originally intended. And while I'm overanalyzing my own stupid writing, I'm finding myself very haunted by the picture I posted in my last entry for some reason. Try this: Look at the photo after having read only the first two paragraphs. Looks pretty wacky and meaningless, right? Okay, now look at it again after finishing the rest of the entry. Doesn't it look completely different? Or is it just me?
Rest in peace, Mr. Rogers. It's a considerably less beautiful day in the neighborhood with your passing.
And the above will be all the gloominess for today, thank you very much. I think, not to get too ahead of myself, that I've finally snapped myself out of the weeklong funk I've been in. I guess all it really takes is some new perspective and some good friends. Anyway, this space has been filled with way too much of my personal life and demons lately, which not only is boring and annoying, but also WAY too stereotypically blog-like. So let's cast that all aside with the ending of this month. I'm here to entertain and inform, god damn it! ...no, really.
It has recently been brought to my attention that the interview process for next year's batch of JETs has begun. So for the benefit of the 3 or 4 of you reading this to get an idea of what JET is like (poor uninformed bastards), I shall weigh in with words of advice, which I shall number thusly:
#1: Contracting your diaphragm upwards and inwards, draw some of the air surrounding you into your breathing-organs, which shall hereafter be referred to as your "lungs".
#2: Perform the reverse of the above process, forcing air molecules OUT of your "lungs".
#3: Repeat endlessly.
#4: Don't talk about goddamn anime the entire time.
Congratulations. You're in. Let me be the first to welcome you to the world of endless, endless, mayonaisse-flavored pain known as the JET lifestyle. You poor, deluded bastard. You don't even know what you've gotten yourself into, do you?
In all seriousness, though, the interview really is NOT all that hard. I mean, hell, they let ME in, didn't they? I was, however, serious when I said not to talk about anime; or for that matter, Japan in general. I think the biggest mistake a lot of people make is treating the interview as if it's for some kinda study-abroad program, and not, y'know, a JOB. When you go to any other job interview you don't talk about how you really hope to work there because you're really looking forward to learning about the culture and customs of the office building in which you'll be working. Let me just say to aspiring JETs that you are NOT coming here for the sake of your own benefit -- well okay, actually you are, but unless you are daft you sure as shit do not TELL THEM THAT -- you are coming here because you think you will be good at the JOB, and are in fact one of the best candidates available for the JOB, and then proceed to rattle off several convincing reasons on why you think this is so. Capice? I know at least a few applicants who went to the same college as me, or one with a comparable reputation, and more than likely got better grades than me (not that that would be difficult), yet I got in and they didn't. Why? Well, I have no concrete proof, but if I had to guess I'd say it's because I'm so much fucking better than them in every possible qualification so EAT IT haha all you brainy bastards can suck my big fat -- I mean, *ahem*, because while I was talking about how I loved working with children and was serious about promoting international understanding, THEY were probably going on and on about how good sushi tastes and how Karate Kid II really opened their eyes to the wonders of the Japanese culture. So I guess what I'm saying, really, is to lie through your teeth.
Anyway, though dressed up in facetious smatterings that's really the best advice I can offer you foolish bastards. You are, technically, coming here to do a job, not to better yourself as a person. If you can present the latter as a sort of added bonus of the former, then that's cool, but be mindful that these people are looking for applicants to perform an agreed-upon service for more than adequate financial reward. They are not just trawling around looking to fill membership slots of some kind of international summer camp. So you'd do best to remember that. I mean sure, once you're actually here you can let loose and be all the freak you were genetically determined to be, but until then...hey, wait a second. Why am I helping people I will probably hate fake their way into gaining access to the same country as me?
...uh, on second thought, forget everything I said. The interviewers rate applicants solely on how many random tidbits of anime-related knowledge they can spew out. They also really LOVE it when applicants come dressed to the interview in homemade Sailor Moon outfits (men, too! ESPECIALLY men!). Another alternative is to come to the interview decked out in World War II Allied Military regalia and eye the interviewers suspiciously the entire time. Never respond to any of their questions, then when they finally end the interview out of sheer awkwardness, abruptly launch into a solemn, psychologically scarring tale of how your good friend Johnny -- a good religious boy, with a young wife and child to get home to when all the madness was finally over -- never got to do so, because he was gunned down in cold blood by "yellow rat men like yourselves." No, really. The interviewers LOVE that.
So, as long as you follow the advice outlined in the last paragraph, and completely ignore every one before it, you should get into JET no problem! So, uh, I'll uh, see you when you get here! Ha ha. Suckers.
