Sutras of a Winesoaked Buddha

Knuckles and Beans

2006-12-12T12:28:00.000+09:00

“I’m in a bad place,” was apparently my response to BC’s question to how or where I was. And I was. I have an emergency switch in my brain that makes me escape the scene when I get one shot over the line. This has taken me into some unusual places, usually backyards, once I woke up in the luggage compartment of an RV and still another time in the Pacific ocean. It’s an odd mechanism, but I’m generally glad it exists. This particular night, Saturday, I was in an dark ally.

Once I had some idea of where I was it and sobered up a bit, I rejoined the group. Or maybe the group rejoined me. Whatever happened, we were all foreigners, and drunk. We needed refuge in the form of increased drunkenness, soft lighting, and the robot politeness of the Japanese so we went to a late night Izakaiya.

An izakaiya is sort of like a restaurant and sort of like a bar. They serve beer, fried food, edamame (little green bean things) and are reasonably cheap. Sweeting the deal, they also usually have picture menus. Lastly it is acceptable to be drunk here. In a word it’s sanctuary.

At the first sight of Laura’s tits bursting out of her bride-of-Santa-red-corset, and sound of our loud foreign and boozy voices we were put upstairs. By ourselves. This was a good thing; for it was there that we acted in the foul and stereotypical ways of the dirty gaijin.

First, we made mistakes with the ordering counting system. For some reason counting things in Asia is pointlessly difficult. I can’t remember if we ordered too many or too few or what, but mistakes were made. Fingers were used.

Secondly our Japanese reading ability was so shitty that we accidentally ordered a plate of fried chicken knuckles to go with our beers and edamame. At about this point things start to get bad.

Nico, completely passed out, laid across the adjacent table totally asleep and snoring loudly. BC was pissed off about something and was very loud. I was totally drunk and slurring or lamenting something trying to keep my shit together in a vain attempt construe what exactly had happened. Communication was severely lacking a everyone was in their own groggy worlds, but it was fun.

I don’t know if it was just in my mind, but I seem to recall batter-sucked knuckles being thrown around the table.

It was as if all of Japan was thinking, "Dirty dirty gaijin, why can’t you just eat your knuckles and beans in peace?

Application of a Festering Thought

2006-12-07T14:18:00.000+09:00

Application of a Festering Thought.

During my strange year back home in Santa Barbara I was drinking fairly heavily, and smoking copious amounts of marijuana. Drinking and driving is a very bad idea, I have only good things to say about smoking pot while driving and did so with great regularity on long night runs to bad areas in Los Angeles to pick up a Chevy S10's worth of political material for one of Jeremy's crazy political schemes. There was no CD player, and it being 2004, I had no tapes. Just the general madness running through my head, and my arm out the window to let as much Central California Coast into my car as possible before going over the hump into the Los Angeles Basin, and all the bad vibes that doing so entails.

It was on one of these weird drives, possibly the weirdest one of them all that I had an idea that was to fester. I was dropping off anti-Wal-Mart material to a strange and paranoid but well intentioned gentleman outside of Paso Robles. He swore constantly, and I was stoned completely out of my head after several hours of late night "madroad driving", so communication was abnormal at best. This is actually of little importance to this already rambling narrative.

It was an idea running though my on this long drive took hold. I was in that fearful and weird post graduate twenties career/life decision bullshit phase of life referred to by help hucksters as "the formulative years". It's a cake walk for some, a testing period for others and leads to paralyzing nervous breakdowns for others. It's a total crapshoot. The possibility for mental collapse is especially real when drugs, booze, sleep deprivation, are combined with a total lack of tangible work skills. Which they most certainly were. These days are much quieter.

To add to all the normal weirdness of the time, 2005ish, I had just been in Thailand and all around South East Asia finding solace in the poor and hot places in that part of the world. I had been eating the proverbial and literal lotus leaf for long enough to permanently destroy the cutthroat instincts necessary to screw people out of money as a young bloodthirsty yuppie from the ugly troughs of American business. I just frankly didn't have it in me and knew I never would, nor would want to. The rags to riches story is bullshit, and I wasn't from rags anyway, so I didn't need to prove to anyone that I could screw people more efficiently than some other baldhead.

Anyways in the same way that turns men to be jungle guerrilla warriors and Catholic priests, I looked to my heroes. In my case I thought about the lives of Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, and Noam Chomsky for inspiration. But you probably already knew that. Anyways, the story continues, and the idea festers.

EDIT: In proofreading this I realized that I haven't even told you what the idea was, but don't worry it's coming soon enough, and it's good, but first more writing..

The idea of being a pure drifter like Kerauac and the other vanguards of rucksack revolution was out of the question. I don't have the stomach for it. In the hot South Fresno summer of 1998, I'd had a taste of farm work and, while an excellent way to cultivate virtue, was not for me. Beatnik drifting is a very beautiful thing, but being financially indebted to kin was not. So, while I respect it immensely, like I said, it was out of the question, though I am always tempted to pack up my 6200 cubic centimeter Kelty Red Cloud and my synthetic and trail tested 4 season Marmot sleeping bag for destinations and durations unknown.

I'm currently sitting in Japan so it's safe to say that the bacteria that inhibit settling tendencies have (ironically) developed colonies throughout my nervous system.

In addition to Jack Kerouac, the psychotic life of sheer documented madness of the late Dr. Gonzo was extremely appealing, though prohibitory dangerous. The process pioneered by Thompson was to match the external madness of the modern world with internal madness and then see what came out the other end of the typewriter. Then, assuming it's legible, somehow convince someone to print it and try to pass it as actual journalism. The possibility for addiction, psychosis, estrangement and certain rejection are very real for those who chose this path. It takes talent and sheer weirdness that can't be faked. I know people weird enough for this lifestyle. They've asked to remain unnamed. One man in particular is, or maybe once was, a filthy and raging monster, fully in the moment and disturbingly beautiful in his God-given madness. If somehow inspired, he could write some truly weird stuff. Maybe someday we'll get torn back and write it all down in a frenzy. But I fear those days may be over. Time set in. Life set in.

Sorry, got a little distracted there.

Anyways, from Thompson I'll hang on what guru Alan Watts describes as "the irreducible element of rascality," and remember that, like Vishnu, you sometimes need to totally lose your mind in order to find it. Maybe I'll keep writing too. Hell, maybe someday someone will read it "with the right kind of eyes" and have a laugh. The important thing is to always keep things a little weird. Weirdness maintains thinking. Thinking delays stagnation. Stagnation invites death.

Oh yeah, almost forgot, I also really need to emulate the productivity of Thompson. Although he was completely out of his mind, he got a lot of shit done. All the creativity in the world goes nowhere if it's stuck in your skull.

Lastly and distinct from the other two nutcases is Professor Noam Chomsky. Certifiably odd human Glen Jackson introduced me to Uncle Noam and his academic brilliance in college. His thinking and morality enlighten (small e) people that listen and read what he has to say about world politics and the corrupt fascists bastards that profit from it. And Uncle Noam is a badass professor, and a brilliant one at that. Perhaps, it is from Noam that I'm most inspired. After all learning is my real hobby. That and teaching. I love teaching, especially to adults.

I suppose what interests me most about all three of these white men. They were all teachers in some capacity and had a curious mind to look at the world from different angles, and it doing so find unique ways of interpreting it. I'm not so sure I have that kind of mind, but I hope that I do. Or I suppose I can steal if from unsuspecting person who does.

So, back to that idea I had. The idea I had on that and many other very weird nights is make a life and living as a gonzo educator. I'm have, am, and am going to try to incorporate the elements of gonzo, socialism, and anti-fascist thinking into a career in education, a field usually full of suited tight-asses on a pencil necked ego trip. Maybe all this isn't coming across effectively. I'll give you an example of a gonzo educational activity. Examples usually help.

Example: In a class of all Swiss-German students I took them on a field trip to a bank. They then had to write a paper, in English, on how to rob that bank step by step. Defiantly gonzo, definatly socialist, questionably educational.

Of course this kind of stuff is impossible teaching ESL and living in Japan. A) They just don't have the vocabulary for it. B) they don't have any reference point to begin with. Gonzo like any form of change comes on very slow out here, and to be honest, being out here is tough on the gonzo already in me. No motorcycles, no drugs, hell not even a car.

One thing I've learned in this fucked up place is that you have to scale craziness to an acceptable level for the environment. My very existence is weird enough for these groupthinkers, and introducing individuality and free thinking in the classroom can only be done after puréeing it and serving it with a Gurber spoon. They couldn't handle anything close to the Isla Vista shit like smoking pot in full view of the police, or playing baseball with recently emptied beer cans completely zonked out on plycibin and Wild Turkey in the middle of the street laughing hysterically while singyelling "Sugar Mountain" at 3 in the morning. That shit won't fly. None of that would fly. They haven't had their Ken Kesey yet, but God willing, they will...he or she has to be homegrown. It ain't me babe.

Staying focused while writing this today hasn't been easy. I'm at work, and that means coffee. Copious amounts of it. Today I made it; and it's very strong. In the absence of anything really mind altering, you have to take what you can get. Most mammals do something, anything, to distort reality even it's just banging their heads against rock

That's what I want to, be a gonzo educator. So here's the plan, I'll stay in Japan and keep teaching, even though it's rather mindnumbing. I'll Work on the educator part during the daytime hours Mon-Friday, and study International Relations at night. Giving the highly interpretive and dynamic nature of the field and the sheer amount of fascism needed to be dismantled, IR is a great field for Gonzo. I need to get qualified in it to teach it to people capable of understanding English. Then after I finish an MA, on some moonlit night I'll take the gonzo out of storage and hit the throttle...

Change of Plans

2006-12-05T13:16:00.000+09:00

“Should I Stay or Should I Go” is not one of my favorite Clash songs. I think the Combat Rock album (except for “Straight to Hell” which may be the best Clash song) is fairly weak; especially in comparison to he highly underrated Sandinista album recorded in Kingston.

I haven’t even started writing anything and I’m already distracted. This doesn’t bode well for the patience of the reader. Fight on dear reader.

Anyways the decision to stay or go has been looming on the minds of pretty much the entire JET community. And let me tell you, deciding to stay a 3rd and final year on JET was not an easy decision.

Q: “WHAT?! Another year? But I thought you were going to go to graduate school/London/Rome/home?”

Yeah I know, I know. But let me explain my decision.

-The main reason I’m staying is that I’m extremely interested in the postgraduate program I’m doing in International Relations. I think people have a vague idea of what it is, but I think I should explain it a little better.

The program is through the University of London’s external program with the London School of Economics as the university in charge of my particular program. I’m taking 2 upper division undergraduate courses as well as 2 graduate level courses. I study on my own reading books and journals online, and in June I will take an examination in 2 of the 4 courses required.

-My original plan was to bust my ass, buckle down and finish all 4 of the required courses at the same time. I’ve recently decided to sit only two of the exams this year and will sit the other two next year. I’ve done this for two reasons. First, after talking to others studying externally in the same program, I’ve learned sitting 4 exams is only really possible if you’re a full time student. Secondly, I really like the course work and by splitting the course into two years, I’ll have longer to digest the material.

So that’s the main reason I’m staying.

Q: Why don’t you just go to grad school right off?

That’s a better question. Actually I really want to go to grad school, and I will, I just want to get course taken care of first. One step at a time. I’ve always had a very difficult time in seeing things through to the end, and I want to see this thing through. Plus my grades as an undergraduate weren’t very good and I’m changing my field of study, so a big name certificate from LSE will make the transition into graduate school less jarring.

Q: But I thought Japan and teaching ESL drove you crazy

Yeah pretty much. But lately I’ve really found my stride out here. I’ve got a routine that suits me very well. My biggest problem was finding meaning in what I’m doing. Because of this academic stuff, I have a better reason to be here in the Japanese countryside then just the “experience”. Also staying in quiet Kamiichi, doing a job that requires a fraction of my brain and time, and having the cash to easily pay for the tuition fees makes studying easier. Plus I want to continue a career in education so staying adds another scape to my teaching belt.

Q: What about moving to Tokyo or another country and finishing the course there?

The idea of moving to Tokyo and studying is laughable. Moving to another country would of course be cool, but I know the situation here and I’ve found a way to make it work for me. Believe it or not, Kamiichi and Toyama have really grown on me.

Q: Is there any other bullshit you want to feed us?

No, not really. I could sing songs about how I really want to speak Japanese well, but when it comes down to it, all I really want to be able to do is hold conversations. Learning Japanese is priority number 3 out here.

Q: Are you ever coming home?

...

Debotchery in San Juan

2006-12-01T15:17:00.000+09:00

Dear Reader

Unfortunately our worst fears are confirmed. I've only just recently received the following letter from the authorities in San Juan:

To Whom It May Concern:

As the Governor of the territory of Puerto Rico I feel it is my duty to inform you that your lost “creativity” has tbeen captured and later lost by the local police, agents of La Migra, and the United States Coast guard as he fled our custody in a brazen attempt to enter the United States under refugee status from Japan.

The description of him that you faxed to us perfectly corresponds to a man who spoke in a queer tongue referring to himself only as Zipacna. He was arrested late Wednesday night after drunkenly brandishing crude a blow gun at a local fish market. A spear, a pearl handled revolver, and 6 sharpened railroad spikes were also found on his person.

From the description of several witnesses including several women in his escort, he was heavily intoxicated on a variety of illicit chemicals. He was raving hysterically about the shrill screams and martial behavior of a Japanese Fascist Generalissimo he called Tsukashima. While we in San Juan are used to the disgusting behavior of the gringos, it is the utterance of this word, Tsukashima that I am writing you personally.

We don’t know if you are aware of this but the name Tsukashima is considered unmentionable on this island and has not been uttered for some time as it is connected to a series of savage rites preformed long before the arrival of Cortez. After merely hearing mention of this this name, several of the officers on the scene have failed to report to work and have resorted to mere beasts, descending into increasingly unacceptable violent, and, frankly—perversely savage behavior.

We will of course keep you informed as to the pursuit of Zipacna. Any help in understanding how your Zipacna came in contact with this name would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Carlos Jimenez
Governor of the Territory of Puerto Rico.

On Hold

2006-12-01T09:56:00.000+09:00

While the rest of me was listening to Okazaki-sensei, my creativity went on vacation. Therefore there will be no new sutras until my beatsisitude comes back from a disastrous and possibly self-harming rum fueled romp through the backstreets and neon districts of San Juan.

Sincerely,

--The Editor

We Didn't Start the Fire.... Updated

2006-11-20T15:27:00.000+09:00

So I'm a history/politics/pop culture nerd so, naturally I love the Billy Joel song, "We Didn't Start the Fire" The following is my attempt at updating it starting from where it left off at the end of the 80s. The rhythm is tough but here it is.

Charles Taylor, Estonia, game boy, Latvia,
Sandinista, Johnny Carson, Pablo Escobar,

Bart Simpson, Magic Johnson, later Nancy Kerrigan
Desert Storm, Desert Shield, War in East Timor.

Clarence Thomas, Arafat, Seinfeld, Yitzhak,
Fertility pill, Brady bill, Walmart's gotta new new store..

Time Warner, Marion Barry, Rwanda’s gotten really scary
Rap, Gotti, Ebay, Ukraine, oh, and say goodbye to McVeigh!

CHORUS
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the worlds been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light
But we tried to fight it.

Douglass Coupland, Kurt Cobain, Rumsfeld met Saddam Hussein,
Newt Gingrich, Jian Zemin, Mike Tyson takes it in the chin.

IPO, Monica, Liebermann, Slovakia,
Free Tibet, the internet, and all of Enron’s shit

Putin, Blair, Ken Starr, Shell wants the ANWAR
OJ, Kobe, Heaven’s Gate, and foot and mouth in cattle.

Pokeman, MoveOn, trouble in Florida
Tony Hawk, Tiger Woods, and the Battle for Seattle!

CHORUS

Anorexic, Atkins’s, Napster, invade another nation
“A Clash of Civilization” and Bin laden’s in Wazuristan,

Xbox, Matrix, Ali G, anthrax,
China, Chavez, Cheney, Juarez.

Taliban, Harrison, “Brokeback Mountain”

Ipod, Hezbollah, peak oil, Africa,
Venezuela, Gaza, Hurricane Katrina
Victor Prodi, Spiderman, tsunami, Koizumi
Frodo, TiVo, Daily Show, and Chechens seiging Moscow!

CHORUS

Same Night Revisited

2006-11-17T13:45:00.000+09:00

Go out somewhere new. In some roaring group. Or just wrangle lonesome. Find some wild bar or if short in the pocket: friend's apartment. And keep up the sleepless fight by means of 520 yen MAXIO genki drink. Keep with the wit. Keep out the wrinkles. Wear this but not with that. Dance. Goof. Remember all that silly glossy Men’s Health and Playboy advice! Look at her, but not at her…for too long anyways. Fresh breath, always fresh breath! All manner of recommendations on how to act and attract, but I can’t remember any of it and let loose and ‘cause I wanna drunk, I do!

And I do by orange juice and tequila.

And after the last dance in Roppongi, CRASH the genki potion wears off and everyone flees to coat lockers and then into the subways to avoid the judgmental and somehow parental crows that sound like my angry mother waking me up early in the morning with “Maaaaaaaaaaax Maaaaaaaax”. Go underground with the other late night refugees. Ghastly girls with strange chemical skin in miniskirts and suede Selfish Queen boots sit with dapper gents in refined flimsy hats leaning against white tiled subway walls. Sprawled. It’s early morning in West Tokyo and it’s full of friends and ringing ears.

These boots are actually say, "Selfish Queen" on them. This may be the only picture I put on this whole blog. Ever.

The Last Slow Dance in Roppongi

2006-11-16T15:44:00.000+09:00

It was the last slow dance in Roppongi. I was there dancing with a girl I’d never spoken a word to. A Japanese girl, with soft cute face, almond eyes, dressed smart-— but otherwise difficult to describe. Her right hand rested quietly on my chest. She felt feminine and oddly familiar like the incarnation of some Ernest Hemingway goddess made real.

It was the last slow dance in Roppongi. The natural attraction of Italian car jocks and girls with eyes for diamonds and glitter was over. They'd all gone home to bon vivant lifestyles. Done too was consumer frenzy, and the click-clack of designer heels on rain soaked concrete.

Note by slow note that music was playing softly as if to cleanse the testosterone so carelessly spilled on the dance floor. It felt as if all my bop heros in heaven were saying, "all is well". It was the last slow dance in Roppongi, so I kissed her.

Overheard in Toyama

2006-11-13T13:27:00.000+09:00

Overheard in Toyama

Drunk 1: Do you wanna go to that place that hates foreigners.
Drunk 2: Man, they really hate us there don’t they… but the beer is cheap. Alright let’s go.

On alternative lifestyles:

ALT1: He was so amazing he chopped wood all day. I’d love to be like that.
ALT2: Mongolian woodcutters don’t have ipods though.
ALT1: Yeah that’s true.

On the phone in staff room.

Japanese teacher on phone: Hai, moshi moshi
Caller: (inaudible)
Japanese teacher on phone: onegaishimasu
Caller: (inaudible)
Japanese teacher on phone: onegaishimasu
Caller: (inaudible)
Japanese teacher on phone: onegaishimasu
Caller: (inaudible)
Japanese teacher on phone: onegaishimasu
Caller: (inaudible)
Japanese teacher on phone: onegaishimasu
Caller: (inaudible)
Japanese teacher on phone: sumimasen
Caller: (inaudible)
Japanese teacher on phone: sumimasen
Caller: (inaudible)
Japanese teacher on phone: sumimasen

On what’s next:

ALT1: damn people are dying a lot this season [on LOST], what do you think they’ll do?
ALT2: I don’t know, maybe just focus on those other people walking around on the beach.

On what’s next 2:

Me: Damn dude, I like your post-JET plan.
ALT2: Yeah, It’s my plan… this week.

On false Expectations:

I don’t think the water is any better here than the water anywhere else.

Beaten up at Bananas

2006-10-31T14:11:00.000+09:00

I came into the room like Sal Paradise into some beat crash pad to get over workaday blues and prepare for party goofs with the JET crew and… GOD damn if there wasn’t the most beautiful girl in that old room. She had more than a cute new face. It was like she had just been dropped off into the universe and was ready to, as Jack said, “take on new worlds with a shrug”. My word! Such a lively face—lithe even—yeah that’s an appropriate description. And and and not the kind of beautiful that’s like, “huh, yeah I guess she is real cute", like a whitewashed Dave Brubeck song. Rather this girl's being was like the ripping tearing straight-to-the-organs kind of beauty of John Coltrane whacked out of his gourd steaming out of control in “A Love Supreme”. And her eyes!! Even the most detached of Bodhisattvas' old heart would skip a beat sending him back into the hellish realms of desire and worldly attachment with just a look. Wonderful to see. I thought to myself, with all that’s rotten in this world there are and will aways be beautiful girls right around every corner.

Anyways the charm (and she was charming, too) of this girl was not lost on old Randy Brownstone who, believe you me, when he gets air of a beautiful girl is a thing to see. Childlike and smooth if making her was a possibility, even a remote one, he was there doing it all the right way. He reminded me of Dean in On The Road but without the madness and Benzedrine. When there was a girl like this in the room Rich ...er.. Randy was really in his Buddha nature. Unlike me, who unwisely turns to juice and tequila joy, ole’ Randy B stays on target. Never flustered. He’s a sight to behold!

I was deep in juice joy and running around digging the whole scene. We’d all be lying if we said we weren’t looking forward to it! Rashaan Roland Kirk wrote a poem about how great a particular crowd was because the patrons didn’t look like Saturday night people. He said that “Some people only go out on Saturday night; and they act like it.” And for all my midweek goofs in my college days, and all my drunken motorcycle rides, we couldn’t deny that we were defiantly Saturday night people.

And there I was, a part of the whole thing. I was genki as a yellow cap kid kicking stones on the walk from school, and I was listening to some gone Japanese girl dressed up as an angel talk about something I didn’t really know about, or maybe I was telling a story about some mindless adventure I’d had, or wanted to have. Either way, while she wrote on my hand, I looked up and saw the people.

The people!

People who had been real go-outers in far away homes in New Zealand, England, and all points around the English speaking world have been cooped up in the suit guglag that is the education system here or in any town in any country really. But we were without even a same-speaker to have giggles and glad talk with at work.

There were cats there who looked like they just came from some long lost Kansas or, say, Garden State, farm, let lose for what seemed to be the first time no longer with their good looking and faithful boyfriends waiting and worrying at home. Pretty much everyone earnestly looking for companionship. Most hadn't discounted the chance of sex and were all fumbling and gyrating (some stone sober even! God! how?!). Everyone with great gusto and biological sense of purpose. The whole scene was like the freshman dorm scene played out ad infinium across the middleclass-isphere.

And the people!

By this point I was well lit, and tried to get into conversations with beautiful girls all dressed in fancy East Coast degrees, but addled with my juice joy it all come out weird. It was if they knew all my faults and bad habits already and I babbled on incoherently. As I asked pointless questions and in response got back the WTFinstant message faces that I more then deserved. Had I been out here in isolated Kamiichi to long to properly communicate effectively with the future leaders of tomorrow? It appeared I had. Later in recounting the night, I guess others had the same experiences, getting the same rejecting faces, so I didn’t feel that bad. But as it usually does luck was to shine on me again…

This new groovy cat from far away Philadelphia’s was lucky enough to have a birthday that night. I liked him because he seemed honest and terrific and we'd been on a great rip though Tokyo. Before I knew it we were hit by the proprietor of this crazy bar with 4 birthday plastic cup fingers of plastic bottle tequila that sent my mind back to Sharkees of all the bars in Santa Barbara.

Oh man! I was fully right back there in Sharkees looking at a totally different set of people. Back in skanky old Sharkees, and me in jeans and t-shirt sadness looking though booze eyes at the storied women of California shanking their hips like a hurricane all while trying to avoid eyecontact with me. Was I really was the broke square that I saw myself as at the time? But I'd come out of my selfloathing soon enough and I was really just there to hang out with Chris and Rob and tell stories of the days' waves ridden, and how they’d gotten tired of hearing overhearing the gay sex in the apartment above and moved out, or other such bar talk. And as corny as it sounds, every conversation was really just a celebration of being young and enjoying the weird freedom we’d half deserved and half had just fallen into.

But I wasn’t there anymore. I was back in Uozu with Florence who was having herself a good time in the thick of it all to. She’s amazing, an honest woman, riding that fine-zen-line between feminist and feminine, able to get what she wanted and do it all her way. I dig her, I think she’s terrific. “Cool” doesn’t even suffice for her she’s something else. She was more than that. She'd best described by some adjective not yet percolated into the vernacular of the middleclass children playing Peter Pan games far from home. Anyways we talked and gossiped about the course of this night… natural and silly as always. Like two zen monks throwing bananas at each other, only we were at Bananas (that was the name of the bar) and not throwing them.

Somewhere in the pheromone fog of the place I was thinking of those that weren’t there. TokyoPUA was surely up in some Shibuya ward playing cool games at night with adventurous local girls looking for a laugh and something different. He would always write to me about regretting his wild actions the morning after. I don’t really believe that he's sorry for his actions, the relenting that is, but he was out there in the mix being really kinetic and I loved him for that.

Another group that didn’t make it was the too cool for that crowd. But we’ll let the melancholy Chet Baker, “they’re singing songs of love but not for me” crowd be. Some simply had to work the next day and stayed in, these are the same type of people that never get second notices from the bill man.

Then there were the others that I missed, that had escaped Neverland (not THAT Neverland) and went home for even fancier degrees and realjobs to show their proud grandfathers when they gather around for Thanksgiving or Sunday roast. We missed them greatly! Lastly we missed the brave adventurers who left the handholding world of the English teacher in Japan for journeys into to Tibet and other far out places on the Earth. These who truly let it all hang out deserve praises.

Anyways, the people at this great party were like the beatniks of the 50s. We were the outsiders of the community. We were seen as wild and unruly, but in a romantic, and lonely way. We were the free living in the midst of self-imposed worker bees who had sadly long forgotten the meaning of Saturday night. We didn’t think of ourselves as being at the bottom of the totem pole of ancient Confucian hierarchy, but rather the dumb drunk bastards dancing around it. Anyways... I’m getting rather carried away here.

Within an amount of time, I was sitting on the ground with back to the wall listening to the loveletter-life of Dorthey and Toto (the symbolism was not lost on me) thinking about her sweetheart at home and they way they were. I was far too long gone to try and be cool (ha) , and just wanted to listen and hear what she had to say (no, ulterior motives) when the lights went on at the club…

The show was over, and it was off to stage two, where it was all jamming to the beat, but I was done and had to work the next day so I went back to the apartment where I saw that amazing girl a few hours and God only knows how many tequila sunrises before. But she was gone, as girls like that usually are, and I folded the futon down, laid down and tried play Stan Getz and Oscar Peterson bop jazz in my tired brain’s jukebox and get to sleep. But I was not alone there. I talked half awake, though mostly listened really, to the wild and, to be honest, fairly raunchy stories of a wild Southerner doing things that I couldn’t even arrange in my head properly. It was all beautiful, and I must have passed out while she was talking, but like most nights like this the last thing I thought about was that Jake Kerouac poem that I carried around in that mupple head of mine:

“Man exists in milk and his rancorous music takes place in honey and creamy emptiness.”

Short term goals revisited. Long term goals posted.

2006-10-27T11:31:00.000+09:00

Short term goals revisited

1.) Fix the fucking shirt. Done and done! Total time spent 2 minutes.

2.) Go to a museum. Check! Went to Kyoto castle (which is like a museum), the Golden Temple, Silver Temple, and walked around a bunch of Japanese gardens, which is also like a museum.

3.) Stop eating chocolate. Well unfortunately my parents know that I have the chocolate cravings of a pregnant woman so they went to Costco and bought a huge box of Toblerone. Fortunately they bought the Halloween style individually wrapped type, perfect for giving as omiyage (small gifts given to coworkers when you go on vacation). So I was able to get rid of the chocolate and butter up my teachers.

4.) Haircut. Done and done!

5.) Give Kakuda more slack. Although this woman can hardly breathe, she is in the full employ of the Japanese government as a teacher in a language she can barely speak. Therefore I have to do most of the planning for all of her classes. Last week was especially bad. I had about 3 minutes notice to plan and teach lessons for her. Of course I didn’t make a big deal about it, but she does kind of bug me. So if there was a fail for the week it was this.

6.) Download more reggae. Big success here, I scored a Toots and the Maytals album that rules. Funky Kingston is especially groovy and their Country Roads cover is fantastic. I also downloaded Bob’s Babylon by Bus, which has some pretty good stuff on it as well. At this point it’s safe to say that I’ll be forever loving Jah.

7.) Less Sorry more thank you. This is pretty hard to measure, but while my mom and granddad were out here I said a lot of Thank Yous, had had little reason to say I’m sorry.

Conclusion: damn writing stuff down is pretty useful…So now it’s time for some longer term goals.

1.) Live in a big city for at least a year. I’m a small city person in my heart, but I have to give it a try.
2.) Masters degree by 30 a frightening close 4 years away, if I can swing this one, I can consider the whole Asian experience will be a sojourn rather then a debacle.
3.) Smoke pot with Bob Dylan. Might have to wait until heaven, but…
4.) Write the great American novel. I don’t really need to publish it, but the whole process would be sweet.
5.) Do a 540 on a snowboard and land it.
6.) Ride a 15-20 foot wave. My biggest yet is about 12 feet, and I still get jittery thinking about it.
7.) Rob an armored car…without firing a shot, give the money away anonymously.
8.) Ride my bike across the US.
9.) Finish the Pacific Crest Trail. I’ve done the hardest part already (John Muir Trail) and the rest is pretty much below the tree line. Peace of cake.
10.) Make and bottle my own wine.
11.) Build a deck and Adirondack chair out of wood without nails or screws
12.) Get tenured at a college before 45.
13.) Take care of my mom and dad when they get old.
14.) Rescue somebody from a life or death situation.
15.) Do a triathlon.
16.) Learn to play the saxophone.
17.) Sell a piece of art that I made to a stranger.
18.) Learn to sail. Buy a boat. Live on it.

Love and family? That shit's totally out of my control…

Short term goals. (boring)

2006-10-15T21:44:00.000+09:00

I've hear a lot lately that if you write something down your more likely to accomplish what you want to do. I think that if my friends and family, not to mention some of cute girls, read it that will just make it even more likely to happen. So here's the short term list:

1). Fix the button on my orange shirt. It’s old, out of fashion, and a bit worn out but I’m loyal to that shirt, I have the string, I have the time, I have the button. Fix the fucking shirt.

2) Go to a museum, buy the t-shirt. If you can’t remember the last museum you went to, you’re a philistine, it's just that simple. Plus talking about museums in far away places is pretty cool. I guess I went to a small art gallery in Tokyo a couple weeks ago, but it's different. I still I gotta go to a museum. My mom and my grandpa are in Osaka this weekend, anybody know a good museum there?

3) Stop eating so much goddamn chocolate. I’m relapsing. I read somewhere that crack dealers do their best business in autumn.

4) Speaking of relapse, I need get a haircut. I look like teenwolf again.

5) Give Kakuda-sensei more slack. She’s trying her best.

6) Download more reggae. Winter’s right around the corner.

7) Less ‘sorries’ more ‘thank you’s’.

Seven will do.

A Fine Balance

2006-10-11T15:09:00.000+09:00

Rohinton Mistry wrote a fantastic book (it’s on Oprah’s book club incidentally) about revolutionary-era India called ‘A Fine Balance.’ On the cover of the book, a young girl is holding on to the steeple of some tall building with a somewhat worried look on her face. Throughout the story the protagonist is pretty much constantly dangling above a precipice of loneliness and despair. She’s trying desperately to hang on to whatever she can get her hands on.

It’s not like being shipped off to the Western Front or anything, but the first few months on JET you're definatly disoriented. You have pretty much no idea what is going on, how to teach, what that sign says, who is cool, or even what food is edible. The teachers around you are just trying to make sure your not a drug addicted ax murder let alone a teacher. Everyday is a mad goof of trying to find that fine balance in the neon jello that is Japanese culture without falling off the steeple.

Of course as things settle down they start to make more sense. You start to live here mentally instead of in some schizophrenic halfway point between Japan and home (Hawaii?). Before you know it the first year is over and the funeral procession of your non-recontracting friends begins. One by one you sherpa your friends luggage to the station, saying that you’ll meet up in London, Denver, or Melbourne. The balance of life that you found bit by bit as a first year finally tips over. You find yourself back where you started. It becomes all too clear that you’ve resigned yourself to an “I’m going to stay home and study” hermit attitude.

OK now I’m going switch into first person. After all this is a blog, and due to its bloggy nature it has to be narcissistic. Richard told me that people don’t like to hear that things are going well on blogs and that it just makes people sick. But that’s just because he’s British. So damn it, this is going to be positive! So if you wanna read me slag off Japan just scroll down, there’s plenty of that going on here, too.

Because I’m not really the otaku type, I’m 26, and I’m ready to be Drifter Senior grade, I decided I was going to be an academic hermit instead of a Japanese language hermit. I got started on some postgraduate work in international relations, which is becoming increasingly interstesting because my focus is on East Asian politics (Korean nukes) and South East Asian politics (Thai coups). A long nerdbook a week as got my academic neurological webs lit up for the first time since I graduated 4 long years ago.

I also started working out regularly for the first time since doing jujitsu with Jake last year. I don’t know if I’m actually getting stronger, or leaner, but the endorphins rushing around my brain make me feel stoned without the foggy side effects and the sketchy dealers. Actually the girl at Nakamura Sports is pretty sketchy. Anyways, I work out in the mornings before work. I haven’t gotten up early since the morning surf sessions ages ago, and it feels good to get up early and get things going. Instead of the drunkerd, I feel like a productive member of society. The real test of my tenacity will come with the first snows…

Socially I was ready to just say fuck it and stay home all the time. I’d made my friends already, I didn’t need anymore. I just needed a drinking buddy (Francie), a ride to the slopes in the winter (Richard), and stalwart Devin to hold down Tokyo for the occasional superbender. For the first few weeks into being a second year things looked pretty bleak for the go-outers. Toyama’s finest late night squad had been globally dissolved, replaced by stable couple’s and nondrinkers. Not to say that that is a bad thing, I just know I need the company of gonzo all-nighters who consistently opt for one more adventure before the crows of remorse circle above my doorstep.

…then we had Welcome Weekend. There was some definite second year bonding: Shoulders to cry on. Stories retold. Faces that no longer looked like the faces of the bright eyed and bushie tailed. We’d developed the thousand tatami stare, able to teethsuck and headtilt their way out of even the most outlandish Kyoto-sensei request. Juxtaposed with the unfamiliar new English speaking strangers (who might have been ax murders), I saw a lot of 2nd years in a new light. A better, cooler light.

That’s not to say that the new folks aren’t cool. Most of them I just don’t know yet. BC, Niko, and I had a nosleep mad tear through Tokyo and had some fairly fantastic adventures (on bridges, with a helmet). Way out in distant Tonami the mostly first year crew laid out a fine, albeit slightly krunky, party. So, I guess it’s like the Grateful Dead said, “once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.”

So this second year has not been a descent into delusional loneliness, but rather a new and fine balance of academic pursuits, health kicks, and a mixed social life. So with a firm and manly will we embrace a second year in the karma Toyama. What will happen!

Jake's Survey

2006-10-05T20:53:00.000+09:00

Ok so Jake is a snob and sent me this survey I added a few questions, but think it's pretty damn good as far as myspace surveys go.

1) What is your spirit animal?
The Pacific Pelican: The Jimmy Buffet of animals. Free to go wherever, kind of smelly but still dignified, doesn’t get real uptight, loves the water, digs a good adventure, but always keeps things mellow and by the beach.

2) If you could make love to one song, what would it be?
Piotr Ilyitch Tchikovsky “1812” overture in E Flat played through outrageously large speakers. Orgasms as the cannons fire. THAT would be memorable sex. Elaborate, but memorable.

3) What's the furthest distance you've traveled to get some nookie?
Unless long term trips to Asia count, I’d say Washington DC from the West Coast for the weekend.

6) What's your favorite Spanish word?
Mi corazón (my heart) is a great sounding word and portrays the meaning well. Also, The Clash sing it with a horrendous working-class accent in Spanish Bombs.

7) If cost wasn't an issue, where would you want to have your wedding?
Jake the Snake said, “space”, which of course is a great answer. I think a modest wedding aboard a huge 1920s sailing yacht would be sublime in a Kennedy sort of way. Then we drop off the wedding party, pick up the surfboards and the red wine and sail God’s beautiful Earth until we die.

8) What book changed your life?
“The Book” by Alan Watts totally blew my mind spiritually and philosophically. It’s transforms the intricacies and non-duality of Eastern thought into a practical way to enjoy life second by second. Noam Chomsky’s "Hegemony or Survival” and Howard Zinn’s “People’s History,” forged my socialist political leanings.

9) Who is your favorite New York Times columnist?
Not Freidman, his, “India is like a champagne bottle” metaphors are inane. Dowd is a bit too rabid. I like Nicholas D. Kristof. He likes to get dug in deep and see things for himself, and he’s not afraid to take on controversial issues like religion. He’s as rational as he is biting in his Bush critiques.

10) Perfect Meal?
California Red Zinfandel from the Central Coast, bruschetta, and good cheese. A second course of tacos made by Carlos’s mom, to be followed by fillet minion topped with murell mushrooms, and wasabi twice baked potatoes. For desert my mom’s apple pie.

11) What's your all-time favorite Simpsons episode? You only get to choose one.
Tchaikovsky’s “1812” was an easy one, this is a toughie. I’m going to go with Homer as the Beer Barron episode, but only bimyo.

12) What’s your favorite quasi-legitimate religion?
Rastafarianism for several reasons including: religiously sanctioned laziness, high spirituality, and political awareness, but mostly to say things like, “I&I be speak to Jah on the most high”.

13) Who would you cast to play yourself in a bio pic? Who would write the novel of your life?
I’d like the novel of my life to be written by my good friend Brad Griff*th, and that Michael Cane would play me in my adult life, but I think Doogie Hoswer is much more likely.

14) Finally, think about the one that got away. How did she/he get away?

got on a plane…

Phuket City, Thailand

2006-09-29T15:34:00.000+09:00

My previous city profiles were all pretty standard, its at this point were things start to get a bit off the rails. Keep in mind here that I’m profiling the people and the city I knew of, not necessarily my part in the city. Because Im not Thai, I guess I’ll look at the Phuket lifestyle from an expat perspective.

Level of Bad-ass-itude
Pretty damn high. Being a local and chillin’ at O’Malley’s pub and scaming tourists was pretty cool. Biologically successful chumps and Drifter senior grades save their nickels and dimes to make it to your doorstep. But then again your toilet doesn’t flush, your apartment is up to its ears in geckos (or worse) and you make about $500 on a good month. All in all it’s the land of the lotus eater.

Toys
Your motorcycle is your badge. Its says a lot about you. Honda Dream minivan. Yamaha Speed pussy wagon. Kawasaki Ninja/Honda CBR? badass killer bee. Lots of people have twirrly fire things for beach parties. Everyone has a Frisbee and a soccer ball for beach parties and odds are you have a scuba or spear fishing kit. Although it’s crude to say, your bits and pieces are all you really need out here, cause everyone’s getting laid.

Clothes
During the week its fake names brand clothes and a tie, after work it’s swim trunks, scuba gear, and during the hot season, just a threadbare sarong. If you wear jewrey its either made of hemp, or the gaudiest yellow gold imaginable.

Car
If your privileged enough to have one it’s a used Japanese car/truck that’s been blessed by a monk and has so many flowers, charms, and shrines hanging from the rearview mirror, you can’t really see out the window. The back seat is filled with scuba gear.

Chicks
Here is the real split between the expat guys. About half have a Thai girlfriend that they stay true to. In this case her respectable profession (usually she’s a teacher) must be stated when greeting other expats for fear her being solicited for sex. The other half of the guys are total whore mongers, who could give a rats ass for nice beaches and hot curry.

Strip Malls?
None (when I lived there), department stores and family owned businesses are the name of the game. Consumerism isn’t really part of the scene there. Its more about heading to the beach, getting drunk, and driving motorcycles, or some unholy combination of the three.

Intellectual culture
Unexpectedly vibrant. The Thais I knew were usually pretty aware of what was happening at home and abroad, and the people living there were incredibly interested in philosophy especially Heidegger and Hegel and postmodernists. Discussions about international politics were unanimously leftist and idealistic, usually involving people from at least 3 or 4 countries, over a hot curry and a couple gallons of beer. The intellectuals that made up the scene usually had fake university credentials and had long since stopped caring about making money, choosing instead a mellow downshifted life.

Bar Scene
The bar scene pretty much rocks. If your feeling mellow there are plenty local pubs and beer gardens to chill at, and for better or worse there’s no real laws against drinking and driving motorcycles. If your feeling like you need something more….eh….stimulating, nearby P@##&$ offers a wild ride through a scandalous world of bargirls, pickup bars, ladyboys, and god only knows what other unknowns.

Worries
Sunburns, STDs (including the biggies), Joel being pissed off because your hungover at work caused you to just give your students worksheets while you “sweat it out”, being mauled on the road by some Thai maniac driver hoped up on Yaba, being stabbed by a ladyboy, having absolutely no money, but most of all ghosts.

Vacation time
You’re on the vacation most people dream of all their lives.

Drug
Shrooms are easy enough to get a hold of, pot is defiantly around, but its dangerous to score. Thai jail doesn’t sound pretty. Thankfully theres beer everywhere, and its pretty good with curry.

Politics
Drunken debates rage for days, but nobody is active in politics at all. Dharmaic Socialists fits the bill.

Religion
Everyone there is pretty much into Buddhism in some respect. Braah Farang (a foreign monk) is not a rarity. Expats feel little guilt in going to the Wat (temple) with a bargirl after a particularly enlightening evening the night before. The Thais are well into Buddha and ghosts and that defiantly rubs off on the expats.

Weather
Hotter than hell.

Side Note
Hookers play a mean game of connect four and while I’m writing this I’m dreaming of going back and never coming home.

My Day with the Executive Supervisor of English Departements for the Toyama Prefactural Metropolitian Government General Educational Center

2006-09-27T13:06:00.000+09:00

Executive Supervisor of English Departments in Toyama Prefecture Metropolitian Government General Educational Center: “Very nice, I see your teachers are running frantically, you must be force feeding the them?”

Principal Sakai: “Oh thank you very much, actually, we add genki drink to the milk, they never notice…and you should see the sheer amount of spreadsheets they’re able to churn out”

“Haaha, it’s a wonder we lost the war with our greatness isn’t it. Oooo is she the office lady?” He points to a frizzy haired linebacker in a pencil skirt.

“Ahh yes, we just had her checked in Osaka, her IQ is 6. Quite phenomenal actually, she was positively built to copy.”

“Does she comply with protocol and speak rapid fire Toyama dialect to the ALT?”

“Sometimes I don’t even know what she’s saying. Would you like to see the English demonstration class?”

“No, I’m not concerned with actual teaching; I would like to see some of the students’ most recent English tests though if possible.”

“Of course, here you are. As you can see, the san-nenseis are far below Pre-war levels, ni-nenseis are able to talk about Japanese food using Japanese words, and the ichi-nenseis can’t distinguish English from spilled ink.”

“I don’t know how you do it Mr. Sakai, but you captain a good ship. Shall we have a school wide meeting for several hours, and enjoy speeches?”

“Only as long as the chairs are setup but nobody is sitting in them.”

Freak Power Party Platform

2006-09-12T11:35:00.000+09:00

Ok here it is, all ready for the midterm elections. The Freak Power Party Platform

First Priority-- The First Green Bullet. This should have been a no-brainier. Figure out how the Brazilians became energy independent by switching to switch grass to fuel their economy. No need for science-fiction technologies, just steal whatever they did and make it happen. Its Brazil for Christ sake, if they can do it, surely we can.

a) Subsidize the first batch of switch grass seeds, then eliminate existing farm subsidies. Growing switch grass could make Nebraska the new Saudi Arabia in terms of energy wealth. Ending American farm subsidies would also help developing countries become more agriculturally competetive and sustainable, ultimately helping the global economy. Doing this would also give credibility to the WTO, which is a good thing. Furthermore, after the enterprise is up and running, limit the size and control of each farm growing switch grass. This will help to reverse the trend towards corporate farming, and the resurgence of the American farmer in the Jeffersonian sense. This would also lead to a reemergence in the economically depressed South and Midwest.

b) Obviously this would get us out of the failed attempt to dominate the Middle East and steal their oil. If we don't need the oil, let them sort themselves out, if they want a new Caliphate, fine, whatever. Bin Ladin can claim victory for kicking out the infidels, but who gives a shit, when they need drinking water they'll be the ones paying $100 a barrel, for sweet Toyama crude water. As for Israel, they are a long past grown up. They can defend themselves, and we'll sell them whatever they need to do it.

c) Switching to a switch grass based economy would bring lowered greenhouse emissions means that the worst scenarios of global warming might not come to fruition. Duh.

d) Eliminating our dependency on oil will directly and immediately end the war in Iraq, and the war on terror. They can solve their Sunni/Shiite thing on their own. We obviously have no idea what is going on there, so we should get out. We can invest the billions of dollars into education and advanced research.

Second Priority Second Green Bullet. Legalize soft drugs. Make every aspect of producing pot legal.

a) Pot is already California's cash cow. Make it legal and you can tax the shit out of it, and sell and control it like alcohol. Make it a law that you gotta be 18 or 21 or whatever. Anybody over the age of 13 knows its way easier to get a sack of weed then a bottle of whiskey, so you'll more likely have less smokers under age.

b) As studies on the Dutch system have shown, the number of smokers changes little with the legalization of cannabis. Square fears of a completely stoned nation will be proven false.

c) The amount of money spent on demonizing soft drugs and incarcerating small time users is outrageous. Less bogus crimes, less prisons, less prisoners, healthier families and a better society and . As law enforcement agencies across the country have said repeatedly, they don't have the time or resources to go around chasing pot dealers.

d) If you follow the rise of crack cocaine in the 1980s it occurs at the same time as the peak of Operation Eradication attempt to shut down the large scale pot plantations in Northern California. No access to cheap pot = cheap crack.

e) Half of the money saved can go towards raising teacher salaries, and half can go to...nah screw it. Send it all to teacher salaries.

f) Combined with growing switch grass, farmers will be millionaires.

g) Like becoming energy dependant, the US will no longer be as dependent for drugs from places like Columbia, Mexico, and other South American countries. We can end our incredibly destructive drug war in Columbia, and drastically lessen the flow of drug money into the Mexican gangs and hardened criminals.

Third Priority Maximum Wage Tax. 100% taxation for all incomes over US$1 million. Seriously, who really needs to make over a million dollars a year? Outrageous incomes created the wealth gap in America, which gave rise to all manner of problems mostly for the poor. With the billions, maybe even trillions in revenue, we invest in alternative energy, port and border security, and a universal health program. At the same time make the minimum wage a living wage for employers with over 100 employees. Stable societies are based on the middle class, vast differences in wealth create resentment. If the rich get pissed at this, who cares, they've had enough time in power and they've abused it. Close tax shelter loopholes and bring back the death tax. Eliminate corporate welfare, and make them pay taxes like the rest of us.

Fourth Priority Superfund the Superfund. With these measures in place the government coffers will be pretty full. Next thing we do is give the environmentalists a giant boner and clean up the country before its too late. We as a country need to listen more closely to our tree huggers and nerds, and give them lots of money to do it. You polute, you pay. Simple as that. Also we should look into sponsoring Carbon sequencing to convert the carbon in the atmosphere into a solid state. Its expensive now, but it might save all our asses in the future.

Fifth Priority Cheney goes to jail. Real jail. in Guantanamo. Torture the shit out of him. If anybody deserves it its him.

Sixth Priority. Singaporize the borders. Even though I sincerely believe that the policies above will lessen our need to protect our borders, we should still inspecting everything that comes in and out of our ports and accross our border. How hard could it be to build a big ass fence. If we're out of Iraq, and Latin America, the army is going to be bored as hell. Make them protect build it. Make the Department of Defense the Department of Da Fence.

Welp thats a good start. Now who's with me?

Shaken (with Salt)

2006-08-29T12:12:00.000+09:00

So in case you’re out of the sewing circle of gossip, Em practically dislocated her shoulder in her rush to throw in the towel. No California trip together, no nothing, she just called it off (I know?! What the Fuck! that’s what I thought!) but, hey, she’s got her reasons.

Now, I could tell the story of how I wandered around Tokyo drinking sake, my boxers hanging out of my shorts mumbling Bukowski-like only to eventually sleep in a park, but that’s not the fun part of manic-depressive. So put some booze in the blender and drink up, damn it.

In any proper breakup-- and this was defiantly one of those-- you gotta find music that gets it right. You gotta play it smart though, after my first big break up, I went with The Police box set. Figured songs like The Beds Too Big Without You, and other melancholy pop stuff was a good idea. It wasn’t. I was a mess. Overkill. So folks here you go, my got broken up with right before I got home to California, but still rockin it up the road mix.

Going down the Road Fellin’ Bad – The Grateful Dead. Poppy as hell. Great road song in general, and hell it’s the Dead, so it’s local. Plus look at the title! perfect! It goes great with the trainwreck I was smoking. A nice long lasting, no paranoia strand with a great peak, the pot was good too. The song just gets the trip started on the right foot.

Jessica – Almond Brothers. An instrumental work of classic guitar art. I don’t know who Jessica is but she’s got a great song going. You can’t help but dig it, especially in a car at 80plus MPH.

California – Joni Mitchell. First of all a fantastic song with the lyrics “California coming home/ gunna see the friends I dig/ I'll even kiss a sunset pink/ California coming home”it's sentimental, and beautiful, you can basically feel the golden grasses of Pachaco Pass singing it with you. This was in the running for top song of the trip.

Don’t Know Where I’m Bound- Johnny Cash. On the San Quentin Prison Live Album. In case you didn’t know, San Quentin is in San Francisco, so it’s homegrown too. As the title suggests, the song is a prisoners struggle to find what he’ll do when he’s released from prison. Anyone who lives in Toyama should know the feeling. Me in London? Who knows…

More Whiskey!- The New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble. Theres only one reason to drink whiskey, and thats to bury your feelings as deep as possible. The NYSJE gets it right.

Ooh La La (I Wish That I Knew What I Know Now) – The Faces. If there is a flip side to getting broken up with, its finding this gem of a song. It’s about learning it all the hard way, the singer has a sort of pre-egomaniac Rod Steward but still Rod Stewart voice, that belts it out like a man that knows what he’s talking about. Plus the singer is talking about learning shit from his grandpa, who I was on the way to see when I was listening to the song. On repeat. For like an hour.

A Summer Song – Chad and Jeremy. A really sapy melancholy song about love taking its course in accordance with the seasons, and eventually being cool with it. It has sort of a Let it Be vibe, so a little bit goes a long way with this track. This is the song on the mix that needs to be on it, but can't really be listened to while the car is in motion.

Such a Night – Dr. John. In contrast to the previous track, this song has absolutely no relevance to anything. It’s just a rockin’ song from the 70s on The Last Waltz soundtrack which I happen to be into right now, and Dr. John is a god in LA, so it has that going for it too. The stylized way he sings it makes it a good song for singing in the car.

Margaritaville – Jimmy Buffet. This was defiantly the song of the trip. Boozy, disorientated, about being a local in sunny paradise, and (as expected) it’s about margaritas which go great with tacos which was my official food for the trip. We drank about a thousand of the beauties with salt on rim for our margarita pub crawl-- which was a great idea. Hell, its time for another one... I’ll just give you the lyrics straight.
Mix 'em if you got 'em.

Nibblin' on sponge cake,
watchin' the sun bake;
All of those tourists covered with oil.
Strummin' my six string on my front porch swing.
Smell those shrimp
They're beginnin' to boil.

Wasted away again in Margaritaville,
Searchin' for my lost shaker of salt.
Some people claim that there's a woman to blame,
But I know it's nobody's fault.

Don't know the reason,
Stayed here all season
With nothing to show but this brand new tattoo.
But it's a real beauty,
A Mexican cutie, how it got here
I haven't a clue.

Wasted away again in Margaritaville,
Searchin' for my lost shaker of salt.
Some people claim that there's a woman to blame,
Now I think, - hell it could be my fault.

I blew out my flip flop,
Stepped on a pop top,
Cut my heel, had to cruise on back home.
But there's booze in the blender,
And soon it will render
That frozen concoction that helps me hang on.

Wasted away again in Margaritaville
Searchin' for my lost shaker of salt.
Some people claim that there's a woman to blame,
But I know, it's my own damn fault.
Yes, and some people claim that there's a woman to blame
And I know it's my own damn fault.

Max's 16 Things you may not have known about Japan

2006-06-27T11:03:00.000+09:00

Ok time for something for our non-gaijin readers. Everyone knows that the Japanese play by some strange rules and just generally do things a little differently. Without getting on a mean streak about my generous hosts, I just thought I’d write about some things that struck me as being a bit odd or unexpected.

1)After finishing lunch, all the teachers stand around the staff room brushing their teeth. Also it is perfectly acceptable to clip your fingernails, as communal clippers are available next to the principal’s desk.

2)In Japan there is no daylight savings time so these days the sun rises at about half past 3…well half past 3-ish. Furthermore, at strategic locations around town a chime goes off at 6am and 6pm everyday. The exact time of the town’s chime can vary from town to town.

3)Schoolgirl uniform fetishes decrease as time in Japan increases. What used to be cute, is now childish and…just… no….it’s just wrong on so many levels.

4)Winnie the Pooh is given an honorific title and is known as Pooh-san.

5)Crapes are, for absolutely no reason, very popular. Harijuku, one of the most fashionable neighborhoods in Japan, has a street that is famous for there crapes.

6)It is socially acceptable for old men to read pornographic cartoons on the train.

7)If you are white and riding your bike at night, the police will stop you and ask if you are Russian.

8)Every town is “famous” for something. For example a local town called Takakoka has the 3rd biggest Buddha statue in Japan. Not bad. I’ve heard of a town that boasts the 2nd longest cement park bench in Japan.

9)Brazillians are Japans Mexicans.

10)The world Karaoke is a combination of the Japanese word Kare meaning, “empty”, and the shortened version of the world orchestra, oke. So Kareoke literally means empty orchestra.

11)It is impossible to lose something in Japan, whatever you lose; you will be tracked down until they are able to return you your lost item. It will be wrapped, and they will apologize for you having lost it.

12)Every conversation with a Japanese woman will ultimately progress into talking about food.

13)Green Tourism refers to not going to Tokyo on vacation. (unvariefied)

14)Some Japanese girls, known as Yankee girls are orange.

15)In public spaces, there are still wanted signs for the members of Om cult that released serin gas in a Tokyo subway.

16)Although this is a pan-Asian thing, and lot of people know about it, I still have no idea why the Carpenters are so popular.

Isla Vista, California

2006-06-09T15:10:00.000+09:00

Isla Vista, CA

At 17 I was pretty ready to get out of the big V and my parents were too. Whenever I put the cheese back in the fridge I rarely wrapped it back up. Even though there was a sign on the cheese shelf that said, "If you love cheese wrap it up". Parents can only tolerate that sort of behavior for so long. I shipped out to the University of California Santa Barbara, and eventually to land smack dab in the beer foam lifestyle of Isla Vista CA.

Isla Vista is physically and economically distant from the posh pony club world of Santa Barbara. But its about a one square mile of mostly self governing university students and poor Mexicans located right on one of the most beautiful stretches of the Pacific Ocean.

Level of Bad-ass-itude
Blisteringly high. IV has the hottest people Ive ever seen, loads of intellectual havens, a stunning beach. The school is almost always in the top 5 for best party school, and the University has had 4 Nobel laureates in the last 10 years.

Toys
A sweet stolen beach cruiser that you ride to Sands with carrying a surfboard, a bong, skateboards, a collection frisbe golf discs, a couch on the roof, the boys at the JD house had a stripper poll and mirror getup that was used surprisingly often.

Clothes
Minimal and Optional. Lots of Halloween costume parts that somehow made it into the rotation. Vegen kids with blue hoodies, stuck up sorority girls with loads of make up on wearing gray sweatpants to look like they just got readyand dont have herpes.

Car
Cars arent really important but theyre usually small and Japanese hand me downs. The interior is full of sand, and In and Out Burger wrappers and socks from the last long road trip home.

Chicks
Span the spectrum from total nerds to total skanks. God bless IV.

Strip Malls?
Impossible. In the 70s the students burnt down the Bank of America building. Picasso road was about the closest thing to a strip mall, but all its mostly independent coffee shops that only sold beer and never made any money, cause everyone that went there got hooked up.

Intellectual culture
Monday-Friday there is a world-class university next door, but youd never know it on the weekends. The most intellectual discussions take place within a haze of drugs and are quickly forgotten.

Bar Scene
Because nearly everyone is under 21, the bar scene is kinda unnecessary, on an average night there are incredibly wild parties in just about every house with IV foot patrol making sure that everyone is nice and drunk, but carrying a cup upside down. Long live DP, may the ocean never reclaim you.

Worries
Sunburns, brain damage, STDs, finals, long keg lines, kidney infections, constantly living in fear because your ex lives less than a block away from you, June glooms, lack of summer swells, narcotics officers, beer money, mom visiting, security deposits.

Vacation time
Youre on vacation most of the time. Life is hopefully balanced between academic pursuits and chemical addictions. You go on as many trips as trips.

Drug
Besides year around sunshine, IV is full of smart people drugs like, beer, pot, and shrooms. Rich kids do coke. But pretty much everyones on something, so you have to drive about 5 miles an hours because everyone is so spaced out. Because everyone is in party mode, drugs seem to be the most common way to meet new people and find new tribes. With in the pot scene manners and politeness are as important as a job interview. Lastly, April 20th is as hallucinogenic a day as possible. Val and Melissas crew just about killed me, I think I stil sso tired.

Politics
The university next door sponsors the liberal line pretty hard and everyone is cool with it because its tough to get the people united for justice on the beach. Unlike UC Berkeley everyone has a token College Republican friend thats cool enough to talk to at parties, especially because he brought the beerfrom the brewery his dad owns.

Religion
Sons and daughters of suburban secretarian liberals. Nobody has been to church in a while. Except the annoying Christian Crusade/Athletes who just bug the hell outta everyone. Repenting for sins usually takes place on Sunday morning hugging porcelain, or in the STD clinic.

Weather
Always perfect, no exceptions.

Side Note
Once you leave, you can never go back, someones already taken your place.

Ameri-Terrainian Blues

2006-06-01T13:32:00.000+09:00

grow up watch tv get dirty play sports junior high feel weird puberity break out grow up play sports try to be cool eat lunch graduate from high school get laid move break hearts learn shit vote graduate from college worry do drugs get drunk study keep drinking move home move out do something really cool or really dumb get over it worry get a real job avoid becoming what the job makes you fall in love quit drugs become what the job makes you buy a house get married lose hair garden have kids redecorate get divorced move redecorate drink play golf clean the garage get married redecorate get sick get well find god play scrabble die.

Visalia California

2006-06-01T10:31:00.000+09:00

Ok so I feel like I’ve successfully mapped out the drifter career ranks. Done and done. Pathetically I actually feel a sense of accomplishment for finally writing something down that (a few) people read. Anyways back patting over, lets get started.

Place: Visalia, California

Visalia is in the middle of Fresno and Bakersfield smack dab in the irrigated desert that is the Central San Joaquin Valley. Not exactly a cultural hotspot. God only knows why my parents moved there from San Francisco, but they did, and it was home for a long time. People have this image of California as a state sized Malibu with Hippies running around hawking free love. Hate to burst your bubble but most of it isn’t like that. Anyways Visalia is an agricultural first town, population about 100,000. Whites own pretty much everything, Mexicans do the work. Like many depressed rural counties claims to be the birthplace of the meth epidemic, and have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the county. I've also heard that it's got the worst air quality in the country. I don’t know if any of this stuff is true, but they very well could be.

Ok here we go;

Level of Bad-ass-itude
Pretty low, the coolest kids in town are in High School or at the Junior college, and most young people get out as soon as they can. In my opinion it’s better than growing up in the spoiled suburbs (sorry Greg and Glen), or way out in the middle of nowhere, like Taft or something.

Toys
A boat that you go to Shaver lake with that sits in your driveway with a blue tarp over it. Large TV to watch drivel for at least 4 hours a night. You’ve also got an Awesome BBQ, and maybe a pool.

Clothes
From Ross Marshals, Target, or outlet stores. Everyone wears name brands, but it’s slightly flawed and nobody’s paying full price. If you Mexican you wear white shirts with a Gothic Virgin Mary, corduroy shoes, and one hell of an attitude.

Car
Your Truck is immaculate. Most of your salary goes into truck payments or accessories; the rest goes to child support.

Chicks
White if your white, brown if your brown. Also you’re married at 20. Either that or you’ve had your fill of the fabled land beyond the fields and came back to settle down, like in Gross Point Blank.

Strip Malls?
Yeah, but…. Yeah we got strip malls, Wal-Mart, the whole bit.

Intellectual culture
The brain scene in Visalia is weird due to its isolation. There are defiantly coffee shops clans of slim shouldered men and brown lipstick women discussing the issues of our day, but the topics are pretty different than those elsewhere. Intellectual discussion usually stays near the realm of theology.

Bar Scene
Odd to say the least. Depending on your class your either sipping boutique brewed amber ales and vintage wine, you’re getting in a fight with cowboys at a party in a field, or you’re avoiding the stray bullets in the club.

Worries
You’re brain rotting from lack of stimulation, the heat driving you insane. Being killed in the blanket of fog. Eventually getting out of you’re mom’s house.
Vacation time On holidays you head to either Pismo Beach or the mountains. Odds are you’re not leaving Central California let alone the state or the country.

Drug
Mostly Jesus, but the rest try to get their hands on whatever they can get. Lottas people rock good weed, poor kids smoke meth (I’m not kidding here folks).

Politics
The masses surely subscribe to water rights based Rightwing Christian crazytalk, but the educated middle class listens to NPR like it’s some underground subversive thing. You can't even tune in the lefty stations from Berkeley. The moveon.org action committee meets at Borders.

Religions
Supposedly there are more churches per-capita than in any other place in the country, again I can’t prove or deny this, but most of the churches are evangelical Christian churches puttin’ out the “If you don’t believe Jesus as your Lord and Savior you’re going to hell” line. Those who reject this line are reactionary atheists or agnostics and have few friends, or are part of the doctors lawyers and Indian chiefs group.

Weather
Hot and dry as hell in the summer, (lots of people have pools), and frighteningly foggy in the winter.

Dialect
Standard American English, Standard Mexican Spainish, Spaingilsh. The hicks speak the same drawl from Barstow to Biloxi.

Interesting Aside
Horribly poluted and dusty air makes a great sunset.

A Drifter Supreme

2006-05-22T13:52:00.000+09:00

Alright so we remember Jr and Sr. Grade drifters right? Hope so. Same kick here. The last in the drifter ranks: A Drifter Supreme. Because of the extreme force of character of the Drifter Supreme, only very few can exist at the same time let alone the same place. Although both highly respected and successful, Two major factors separate the Drifter Senior Grade (DSG) from the Drifter Supreme (DS). First the drifter supreme works for no man. Although he might hone his skills under the tutelage of another, he isn’t the shogunate’s loyal retainer running errands. Hirori Hanzo and Robocop, for example, both were amazing Battousai (manslayers) but neither played by their own music. The Zatoichi (blind swordsman) however was a Drifter Supreme. No home, no master, (no eyes even)… full on freakin’ Ronin. Second, the Drifter Supreme’s character must be so outstanding and unique that mere mention of his name stops men’s hearts. His greatness of character is such that the name itself is forever transformed. If you’re accend to the rank DS, your first name is essentially retired, never to be used again. Consider the following:

Magellian
Ernesto
Hunter
Ernest (not the one scared stupid)
Jack
Anakin/Luke/Han
Jesus
Marco.......Polo!!
Simon (pronounced /Sea-moan/
Victor
Jimi
Walt (not Disney)
Teddy
Mad Max
Karl (not Rove)
Neo
Musashi
Sidhartha
Bob (both Dylan and Marley)
Mario and Luigi

Hallowed ground. Hallowed ground.

I’m reluctant to do this but I’ll give it a try.

Level of Bad-ass-itude
Highest. You’ve transcended badassitude.

Toys
Once you die everything you own is in a museum or a church.

Clothes
Either an astetic robes (prophets) or worn out dusty old jeans (Jack, Walt, Che)

Car
If you drive it’s in The Great White Shark, but most DSs are such drifters that they just walk. Or they were born before cars.

Chicks
Chicks are all over the place for the DS. They defiantly seek out unique women like Mary Magnalin, Princess Leia, and “The” Princess. Some DSs have huge sex drives, (Ernest, Jimi, Marley) some none (Sidhartha)

Worries
The DS has one primary worry that defines his life. It’s usually the Devil (Jesus, Hunter), Salvation of man/ending of suffering is also a talking point (Sidhartha, Jesus, Marley), and last but not least class warfare (Jesus, Karl, Ernesto, Dylan)

Vacation time
I don’t think this applies!

Drugs
two bags of Grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers.... also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. (Hunter, Jimi, Jack)

Or Wine (Jesus, Dylan, Jack)

Or

Straight edge (Sidhartha)

Politics
Bleeding heart liberals (all of them)

Religions
…are based on them.

Friends
Disciples, beatniks, Rastafarinians, “the critics”, Communists. Not Romans.

How to Leave Japan Without a Passport

2006-05-08T10:47:00.000+09:00

After speaking incomprehensible Japanese on the phone to the ticket people and constantly repeating the word, ‘michi’ (street, path, road), Devin translated to Em and I the nitty gritty: yes there was space on the ferry, but we would have to sit in the aisle. Sitting in an aisle is not a very Japanese thing to do. This was a good omen. Em and I were on a mission to find the flip side to the Japanese workaday salaryman lifestyle; and we figured our island destination of Hachijojima was the most likely place to find it. Where is Hachijojima? Exactly.

So for the 10-hour boat ride out of Tokyo we sat against a vending machine in the aisle, our space demarked with a ‘leisure mat’. Splayed all about were a regular rogues gallery of Japanese outcasts; fishermen, surfers, and old-faced drunks.

When we landed on the island we realized that we had effectively left the Family Mart Lawson Daily Yamazaki beat behind. It was like Hawaii. Like really old Hawaii without the gleaming side effects. Beautiful. Sparse but beautiful. And mostly free.

We got a ride to the ‘main street of town’. I believe it was a gas station. Thinking that our weak Japanese abilities had failed us we decided to walk to the sea. After all people on islands are always on the sea…. Nope. Empty. We traveled around the island looking for people, only to realize that in fact nobody was anywhere, eventually returning to the first place we went; an abandoned black sand beach…

Miraculously we (and by we I mean Em) stumbled upon a stairway leading up from the beach into tent land. Posh tent land at that… and we didn’t have a tent. Smart planning eh?

No tent + no stores= ???

I combed the island’s meager and dusty wares for a tent. None. Zero. The idea of selling tents in an area where people went to camp didn’t occur to these simple quasi-Japanese beach side people. As I went from place to place asking for tents, I began to think of possible alternative solutions. Like steeling tarps and propping them up with sticks.

In the last possible shop (the dustiest of them all) I inquired in Japanese if they had a tent. They did not (arms crossed). ‘Are you sure?’ I asked. After a lot of head scratching and banter with the other clerk he asked me to follow him up stairs into an even dustier area. He took down a box, seemingly at random, that was filled with……….

Sorta tents.

It was a 4-sided dome with only one side covered. But it did have poles. And they did have tarps. And I did have duct tape.

So I ghetto rigged us up a tent, taping the tarps (using pleats) to the sorta tent. (Picture to come). The tent was the laughing stock of Poshtentland, but I served us well for our tenure on the island.
The tent solution was mediforic of our trip really; no planning, but great results.

We just did:

Nothing. Just chilled, read books, did some yoga, ate well, and took long walks (like 3-4 hours a day) to the waterfalls, onsens, and botanical gardens (all free). It was really nice… and we had beautiful weather with out exception.

On the way back (by boat) I was sleeping (in the aisle) and wide-eyed Em stirs me to tell me that she’s made some new friends. “Japanese?” “Yep” .The friends Em makes in Japan are borderline shady at best. Case in point the crazy dudes we played rain baseball against during hanami.

So needless to say we got drunk (sake, beer, sake, beer) on the top deck of our craft and it deteriorated pretty quickly. We ended singing/teaching “If your going to San Francisco” and practicing singing scales, all while the head dude, ‘Mr. Yellow,’ as he referred to himself, made strange remarks about how if he were still married to Ms. Pink (also present) that he would have an affair. With Em. Gnarly.

It was getting to be a bit much, so we took our leave, got off the boat and hung out with my buddy Devin, and his friend Teruo over pizza and good Spanish wine.

I'm trying to keep, my island vibe alive, but the Toyama grey-kick is giving me chills.

Revisionist Living

2006-04-20T11:21:00.000+09:00

A piece of paper came across my desk.. It had my name on it and a bunch of empty boxes. Ok. Just ask the Oracle (Kaneko-sensei) what to do.

“Kaneko-sensei, what am I supposed to do with this?’”
“Write about what you did during spring break. It’s for the PTA newsletter.”
“…in Japanese?”
“…of course, do you need help?”
“nah.. I can do it.”

Unwilling to rub in the fact that I did a fantastic tour down to Kyushu and partied my brains out with wine glasses full of tequila for a week while the rest of the teachers dragged ass a work, I wrote the following in hiragana and really easy kanji.

“During spring break I saw the 14th day of the Sumo tournament in Osaka. I saw many famous sumo. I enjoyed it.”

Naturally and patronizingly, everyone that saw me write these pitiful sentences hemmed and hawed over how good my Japanese was and how willing they were for me to marry into their families. Hurdle cleared. I was ready for my ticker tape parade though the streets of Kamiichi. Surely I’d be carried in a royal cart by the strongest men in town with only my arm hanging out of the luxurious curtains, like the rich guy in, “The Laorax”, actually more like Aladdin. Yeah just like Aladdin…with elephants and the whole troupe of…

The eacher in charge of PTA newsletter politely interrupted my Sunshine daydream: “Sumimasen, Max-san. Write Kimiichi town Yasumi please.” Please write about what you did in Kamiichi during break.

As the words, “but” threatened to escape, I kept my face (a Thai skill) and erased my previous entry and rewrote,

“Because there was no snow, I rode my bike in Kamiichi town and ate ramen and fish. I enjoyed it.”

Which is just stupid.
…

Revisionism is truly a hallmark of Japanese culture. The reality must fit in with the myth. I’m reading a book about wartime Emperor Hirohito, and it’s full of these examples. If he fucked up and (sort of accidentally) invaded Manchuria it was due to the ‘poisonous advise of his advisors’.

As the author shows, Hirohito was basically in near total control of every that happened in the lead up to the war and the invasion of Continental Asia, but was able to effectively whitewash the reality to avoid embarrassing the throne. Hirohito wore pure white silk (symbolic of purity in Shinto) when he “confessed” his role in the pre-war planning.

My guess is that he wasn’t really riding his bike around Kamiichi eating ramen and fish when the bombs started falling.

What's Going On? nothing

2006-04-11T13:31:00.000+09:00

We talked about the war. Well not The The war (grandpa's), or The war (dad's) but our the war. The Iraq war. Before you know it, Im up on stage singin the beautiful antiwar anthem What's Goin On? And Im just diggin' and swawin' like down stud's dream (hustler supreme); the words are really getting to me and it..... just.....it just... makes me wanna halla, throw up both my hands... the Koda Kimi look-alike bar maid's heart is melting away the mascara layers, and she (too) thinks I'm terrific.. She absentmindedly traces the rope burns that won't heal. I really wanna be nice to her cause she deserves it. Kameda, noticing, tells me to go and talk to her, but I cant even tell her what foods I like, or when my birthday is, let alone be real real nice to her (nihongo de!!), plus “I, I I I I didn't have any money." And I tell him (Kameda) this fact (no$) and Kameda just whacks me on the head and tells me, "Ass~! How do you know she isn't out for love?" [last line stolen from Jack Kerouacs Beat Generation] And I just sit there like a jerk [also stolen same source, actually] and I feel bad, but He's right. And I know it and... wait but I'm on stage!! "We don't need to escalate, ya know, war is not the answer." The karaoke Golden Gate graphics on the screen can't break the spell-- cause Subarashi wonderful is on the tips of everyone's tongue. It’s the baggy construction boys at the bar, backs to me, who have no time! No time to decode foreign goofily goop regardless !REGARDLESS! of its meaning (which was, in fact, for only love can conquer hate). They have extra bridges and reinforced castles to span and they smug each other, for all the suitman in the room, they are the progressmen. Peacefully pushing forward. Even during the long du-du-du section (my high notes unable to...I dunno heighten.... as a high note should, but it passes in this land sooo un-high [and full of mayonnaise]). The whole bar is movin and its just real soulful even though I’m only feelin like I can sing! I can't sing. Why is this happening!! How is a white boy (with glasses) soulin' out, "What’s going on across this land," without being laughed off stage with a hook! JapanJake was right! Bluish-aura Jake (the snake) tellin’ me that, if you look like you’re diggin' it, then they'll dig it too but I've lost the point I was tryin' to make! See what I’m talkin’ about!! You get so siiiide tracked. And then the punctuation just slides out namely [shift+1] and you’re screamin' and just annoyin' and your use of commas is all out of wack and you put some in,,,,,,, ad hoc just for good measure [idea of comma use sort of stolen from Jack Kerouac's American Haiku].... But the song is gone.... and the gummy berry juice is gone...and the war is still on... and nothin's changed.

Off The Road

2006-04-11T10:12:00.000+09:00

“This is real interesting stuff, I really like your work...uh…hhmmm….”
“But…?”
“…like I said this is great, but you’re just not Lonely Planet material. Thank you for your time.”
“How do Souls taste?”

So it’s obvious I’m no good at travel writing. Jack’s ‘On the Road’ was kind of boring too I’ll have you remember. I mean, what kind of comments can you really make to a travel blog (sounds like fun) anyway? I still want to bring out to you the feel of the trip. I’m in a bind here. You are bored. Emily actually told me that she’s no longer going to read my blog. Ouch. I’m a teacher, I know every variety of bored from the palm-to-chin fromp to the Hasidic head fade. Whenever my student’s feathery Japanese eyes start to turndown their lights down low anda pull down dey window curtains, I just yell: “Let’s PLAY A GAME” and they perk up ready for action.

so I want to play a game with you that we played extensively on our trip

From the people that brought you the Asian, White, or Jewish Venn Diagram its:

Is Falconry Sexy?

Materials: computer, Internet, imagination.
Number of Participants: any
English skills needed: typing, nouns, gerunds, and infinitives
Purpose: get people laid
Rules: we all know this game. It’s a Cosmo, Playboy standard: Is something sexy, not sexy?

Not sexy

Falconry,
Watching someone eat okonoiyaki,
Mustaches (on women),
A pouch of fat that actually goes over and droops from the belt,
Origami obsession (a guy who shows you his crane collection won't be getting any.....unless he is a super hot nihon boy),
Playing chess with old people (could be sexy if you said it right)
Saying "didju know that....." -

Sexy

Lighting a girls cigarette in the right way - not sleazy,
Playing any musical instrument,
Motorbikes,
Yoga,
Reading on a park bench,
Speaking foreign languages,
A woman pouring something correctly

Osaka Beatbox and the Great Okayama sleep in

2006-04-06T09:51:00.000+09:00

Man I gotta get this tale a’ woven, the work-a-day world of suits and ceremony is starting to make me forget my vacation already. I’m sure it’ll all come back to me for the storytelling festival that is the Toyama-ken weekend.

Ok so in Osaka after going around the loop expressway several times, we found our hotel…and it had roller coaster. Nah… just kidding we stayed at the annex to the annex of the roller coaster hotel. The place itself was pretty mundane. Parking the car wasn’t.

So the hotel fella’ gave us a map that at first glace looked pretty easy to follow. Go under the tracks and turn left make a right, park the car, no problem. He failed to mention that we would have to go through Crackdown (kuraku taun) Osaka. Seriously when we crossed those tracks it was like walking into City of God; this place needed a Shinto-class cleansing. At about 10:30 at night, grimy homeless Japanese people (who didn’t look Japanese) were constructing cardboard forts. It was pretty bad. We ended up getting a little lost and had to turn around. As we did, we found ourselves right behind a parked small car full of people. Jake and I both recognized instantly that a drug deal was going down. So we free-based with them and had some peyote and a generally good time. According to the Hells Angels rulebook, because they gave us drugs, we let them have first go with our women. Then we parked the car.

Actually Osaka was really fun, we caught a good beat box show (Sara drunkenly thought it was orgasmic, but it was just reallly good) where I got a bit too drunk and waxed sentimental, Jake hit on girls, guys hit on Francie, and Sara just freebased a bit more.

Hangover and sleepy, we woke up late and hit up the 14th day of the Osaka Sumo Tournament. Seeing Sumo live is kinda hard to describe (especially with the sake flowing). It’s very ritualistic and formal, but it’s fucking amazing. The crowd is polite and somewhat muted unless the fight lasts for a while then they get really into it.. The final bout we saw was between the Mongolian yokozuna Asashoryu and Kotuoshu and was fairly anticlimactic… and I was pretty drunk. That night was a full on karaoke/genki drink (here to referred to as gummy berry juice) blowout that to be honest I don’t really remember too well. But it was pretty damn sweet.

After Osaka we cruised into the lazy little city of Okayama, had a pleasant bento and casually strolled around the town and castle grounds, later had a good South East Asian meal, and promptly fell asleep for about 14 hours.

In the morning we went to the 3rd most important garden in Japan, it was lovely, I believe we enjoyed, but I'll have to check that... But this was no time for idily hoofing like a goof, so we loaded up our trusty steed and headed south up and over the Honshu-Kyushu bridge.

Next up:

A Beer at the Pier-side Fukaoka Snowboard Park and Grovin' like Gen. Grant in Nagasaki.

A Journey to the South Part I: Greetings and Calculations

2006-04-04T11:39:00.001+09:00

“Ok Max-sensei, please greet the readers”
“Good morning everybody.”
“Thus ends the greetings, Max-sensei please continue with the blog entry.”
“Ok, but it’s gunna be long.”

For about 130,000yen (US$ 1300) you can get lots of great stuff. You could buy a sweet computer, a huge tv, or a mound of coke and a classy hooker. Proving that I will never break out of my college mentality, I blew it all on coke and hookers (American joke). Actually I spent it on an epic spring break road trip down to Kyushu and have physically little to show for it but a 100-yen ninja cell phone charm, two boxes of cheap omiyagi, and a chinaman's tai chi suit. But the stories told, heard, mumbled, and made we're worth every penny.

Like a Japanese museum, I’ll give you the quantifiables first:

Days: 10
Kilometers: unknown
Principal Participants: Jake (dad), Sara Ray (aunt), Francie (drunken daughter), me (hero)
Craft: Jake's white 4-door generic Toyota
Tanks of gas: 5
average cost of take of gas: 5500yen (US$55)
Cities visited: Osaka, Okayama, Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Hiroshima
Cost of tolls on expressways paid for navigation errors: 2000yen (US$20)
Total days of rain: 1 (on drive home from Hiroshima to Toyama)
Numbers of times around Osaka loop: 3 maybe 4
Nuclear Bomb Memorials: 2
Girls that Jake hit on: unknown
Creepy internet friends met: 1
Number or working legs on Jake's chair in Fukuoka: 3
Francie's suitors: multiethnic
Best story told: Sara's by far
Gay bars stumbled into: .5
female to male to ratio at concert staging area in Hiroshima: 400:2
Things that went wrong:0

I’d like to start this yarn with, “on a warm summers evening on a train bound for nowhere,” but that’s not at all how it started. It was a warmish early spring afternoon in a car bound for Osaka. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I wasn’t out of school yet. With about 15 minutes until school ended, I loosened my tie and downloaded some good road music... shit. What the fuck. Closing!!! Cannot read!! My iPod crapped out on my and I lost all my music save some last minute Notorious BIG and 2pac’s Greatest hits. Right before a 10-day road trip…damn Ok so redo:

Things that went wrong: 1

So after a hilarious trip to the bank where I exchanged 25,000yen (USD$250) worth of spare change, picking up Sara, pissing off a hair salon, picking up Francie, and ceremonially opening up new air freshener (deaths head brand), we were on our way to our first of 5 cities: Osaka

On our approach to Osaka we listened to the 90’s Rap ballad, “Put it in your mouth,” and, other classics on Sara’s sleazy Source magazine mix. Sex talk began. Unrecountably hilarious stories ensued. Little did we know that such an explicit tone had been set for the next 9 days.

What would happen!

coming soon... Beatbox Boys of Osaka and the Great Okayama Sleep In

Kamikaze Baseball

2006-03-20T17:07:00.000+09:00

"Did you watch the baseball game yesterday?" I asked my sports obsessed Japanese teacher referring to the quarterfinal Japan vs. Korea game.

"Of course. Do you know Japanese word Kamikaze?" red flag

"Uhh, yeah, sacred wind, right?" I say thinking of grainy History Channel footage of evil karate kid headband bastards crashing into American ships full of inocent grandpas. We all have our false stereotypes. She continues, her voice as soft and clear as a cult member.

"Japan is very delicate country, and kamikaze protects us. This is how we beat the Korean team."

"Japan has the worlds second largest economy, and good pitching. It's not delicate." I said logically but defensively, "And it plays good small ball." I added diplomatically. I'm not going to abide by that poor pitiful Japan shit. In my opinion this whole World Baseball Classic has gone way off course with other countries not laying down like sacrificial lambs to be rightly slaughtered by American sluggers like the two bit banana republics that they are (kidding).

"Did you know that Japanese Emperor Prince, was in Mexico during their game against America? This gave Mexico special luck to beat America." She accented the 'mer' syllable like it was a bad word.

"Uh, no I... uh... I didn't know that. But Mexico has some good power hitting."

"Japan is a very special country, I think everyone in the world loves Japanese people"

"Kaneko sensei you know I love you, but I hate when you watch sports."

I watch the games in Japanese, which I hardly understand, and the play-by-play announcers must sound something like this:

"and Ichiro pop-ups out to left and the Sun Goddess blesses only Japan.."
"so desu, ne?" isn't that true.
"Next up is Kawasaki, who truly exemplifies the Japanese people. He is physically small yet deceivingly powerful, respectful, and never gives up. Here's the pitch. He's much like our young lions during the Russo-Japanese war. Ball one."
"so desu, ne?"

Last week was just a disaster baseball-wise. Monday's American victory over Japan was clearly due to an umpire's mistake, which every teacher wanted to explain to me. The more articulate teachers came at me with, "You know Max-Sensei, I'm not so sure that America won that game last night. In my opinion the umpire might have been wrong." One dude barely squeezed out, "Amerika" and crossed his arms into an X (I wonder if he was talkin' about baseball). Of course I agreed with them but I was still pretty stoked that we won. I mean I wasn't going to get all-uppity righteous and say, "Do you know American phrase, Manifest Destiny? America is a special country chosen by God to kick your ass in WWII then to refresh your memory by kicking it again in baseball." Which would have been the equivalent to all that 'sacred wind, Empire Prince special luck, delicate country' crap that I got. It didn't end there.

Wednesday the collective poker face that is the Japanese workplace erupts in spontaneous joy. Reason: America lost to Mexico thereby advancing Japan into the quarterfinals. "Screw alla y'all," I said as everyone looks at me for my reaction. They were ecstatic. I don't care if I'm the ugly American; I still want my country to win. Every one has the right to want their country to win at sports. Even as a crazy baldhead you gotta get up, stand up, stand up for your right. Right?

.....
To be continued

Painfully Familiar

2006-03-13T10:37:00.000+09:00

Damn you FOX network. And not for the normal political reasons. Apparently, they are aware that I am a modern hero and have decided to create a show in my likeness. Free Ride. It’s about a strapping young lad from rural America that graduated from my alma mater UC Santa Barbara. he's pretty cool but he decides to move in with his parents while he decides what he wants to do.

In the first episode he buys an air mattress.

***Shutter***

.

The Monster State

2006-03-09T14:47:00.000+09:00

Silent Stick and the Nonexistent Carrot

So motivation to work is a bit of a problem for me. Prolonged exposure to Santa Barbara, Thailand and marijuana tend to do that to people. But work is the reason d’etre for Japanese folks. I was hoping that their work ethic would rub off of me, but I’m not really sure if it has or not. Today’s subject is motivation…. Sorry… MOTIVATION!!

In the post 70s West, it seems true that, ‘everybody’s working for the weekend’ and all that. It’ like a cycle; Work yields money, money yields cool stuff, and free time allows you to enjoy it. So we work. If we don’t like the cool stuff/money/free time balance we’ve got, we adjust accordingly. Take the people who quit the big money in exchange for more free time. Or the opposite, people with too much free time that get a part time job. Not rocket science. But apparently here it is.

90%ish of the working Japanese people I know work all day every day. They don’t sleep, just work. Weekends too. They come to work at 7:00ish and don’t leave until 9:00 at night. Weekends too. They’re not as efficient as they’re portrayed in the West, but they aren’t sitting on their asses nearly as much as I do. My question is why? Sure you’ve got some cash, but you have no time at all to enjoy it. Maybe once in a while you go out and get drunk, but you go out with your coworkers. Basically, as soon as you finish school you work nonstop until you’re 60. Holidays too. During a holiday, I went on a bike ride around town. The stores and roads were empty, and the business and school parking lots were packed. People were working. WHY? Reason: The Silent Stick:

‘Cause they don’t want to let each other down and you don’t want to be the weak link. .

This sort of logic works well in warfare, but it’s a crappy way to live your daily life.
It’s like the price of a beer at a trendy bars, it just keeps escalating higher until people commit suicide. Nobody wants to work 90-hour weeks, or drink $10 beers, but we do it. Regardless of how absurd it all is we can’t flinch in the face of our friends and coworkers. Humans are just weak like that.

There is no carrot in Japan. The best you can do is not be gossiped about. There is no signing bonuses, paid holidays, or stock options for Japanese people. If you were lucky, after years of work you can tell people what to do using the plain style of Japanese, but fuck that, I’d rather have my weekends.

This is the very definition of the monster state. People pour everything into society, and hardly enjoy the benefits of doing so.

Rashamon

2006-03-08T13:20:00.000+09:00

What I saw:

In a hallway, Brad turned around a corner and accidently bumped into a cute Japanese girl. She blushed and said, "Gomen Nasai", then proceeded to check Brad out from head to toe. Brad, taken aback, quickly backed up. As he did so, I accidently kick the back of his leg and involentarily said, "'ai" as I momentarily looked down at Brad's leg. When I look up there's a hot chick looking into my eyes.
We think: damn, Japanese girls dig us.

What she saw:
Two guys came around the corner. The first one is a clumsy giant, and the second one bowed and said, "Yes" for some reason.
She thinks: Fucking foreigners.

Drifter Senior Grade

2006-03-06T13:36:00.000+09:00

Drifter Senior Grade

Scene: meeting new person at social event in drifters home country

Me: Hi, I’m Max
Hot Chick: Hi I’m a hot chick.
Me: Cool, how’s that working out for you, like, being really hot?
HC: (giggles and gladtalk flirting continues) So where do you live?
Me: Well actually I live in Japan (HC looks impressed pupils enlarge, etc)
HC: WOW, that’s great! What do you do there?
Me: Well, I’m an assistant English teacher…
HC: Oh yeah? Uhhh… I’m going to go talk to that rich looking guy.
Me: Barman… Hit me.

That’s the unfortunate situation of the Drifter Junior Grade.

Let’s see how this plays for the Drifter Senior Grade:

HC: (giggle) So where do you live?
Me: Well the BBC has us on the go a lot. I was interviewing Iraqi members of the Al-Armani Jihad Martyrs Brigade when suddenly the battle for Falluja broke out… we got some great footage, but it cost us our best cameraman. He’s…he’s…he’s in a better place now.
HC: Your place or mine?

Around the late 20s/early 30s threshold, the male existential crisis is either resolved or metastasized into full-blown schizophrenia. At this point in life he should have something to show for it: a wife/girlfriend, an advanced degree of some kind, a skill, an adventure completed, a language learned, or at very least a sweet car. Drifter junior grade has little to show for and, embarrassingly, has to crash at his parents' (or more successful friend's pad) to get back on his feet. As he lays awake at night in his high school bed, or friend’s couch, he realizes that the possibility of becoming a Master of the Universe has passed. His options are two: he can settle for the BSChump role or graduate to Drifter Senior Grade.

like DJGs, DSGs live abroad, but are not a low level English as a Second Language teacher. A DSG can still work in the ESL/EFL field as a full-fledged university teacher on par with other native teachers, or he can be a Director or Studies at a language school, but he cannot be in classes doing the same work as a Drifter Junior Grade (DJG). But most likely a DSG has left the low status ESL world. The DSG is more likely a foreign correspondent journalist, or a MA/PhD researcher (with a grant) studying something specific like migratory patterns of penguins in heat. Other jobs are also respectable for DSGs. For example real-time translator, black belt aikido instructors, UN atttache, lecturer/writer, quantum physics professor, or deep sea explorer. If he's a buinesss minded type maybe he’s an importer/exporter as his long nights as a DJG studying kanji, Russian, and reading The Economist paid off. You basically able to say things like, "I wonder how this is going to affect the DAX and the "Footsie," and sound like you know what your talking about.

DSGs are pretty damn sweet byt they don’t chill at the same places as DJGs, instead of hostels and guesthouses they meet at storied hotels with names that start with “The”. “The Continental” or “The Sir Francis Drake”. Think Michael Cain in “The Quiet American” or that academic fellow in Dan Brown novels. They're smart as a whip, and played their cards right, but they're not famous or anything. Basically, Kerouac would have respected them before they a got all pretentious and bought a bed.

Level of Bad-ass-itude
High. You’ve not only seen it all, you participated in or ‘covered it’. You’re also perfectly fluent in at least one language. People you grew up with don’t know you anymore and your never been asked to be someone’s best man.

Toys
A 35mm camera and your grandfather’s wartime .38 (in case things get out of hand). You've also got a Kevlar-plated laptop, your prized collection of tribal masks, mahogany bookshelves replete with your ‘works’, and a signed picture with you and your mentor.

Clothes
Earthy and tweed coats and corduroy slacks if you’re the academic type or blood-spattered vests with lots of pockets if you’re the foreign correspondent type. You always smoke a pipe or a cigar and wear the cap you bought in Edinbrough.

Car
It’s unimportant to you but it was made in Sweden. When the weather is nice you ride a bicycle similar to the one you had when you went to Saborne

Chicks
Cute smart undergrads quote you constantly, but you grew out of dating them when you were a PhD candidate.

Cash
You’ve got a comfortable apartment, but you blew a wad on that authentic Hanzo sword. You think being rich is uuchk...so jeune c'est pa.

Worries
How your recent work is ‘received’, insurgencies, how the ‘administration’ keep screwing you over. Grant money. Currency deflations.

Vacation time
You go to major universities (not in Las Vegas) for conferences and look forward to seeing the near-by museums because the (insert European name) collection is visiting.

Drug
You used to smoke pot and talk about books in college when the frat boys got drunk. You still smoke occasionally when the book club gets together. You like scotch, imported beer and whatever spirit is popular in the county you live in.

Politics
by the New York Times

Religion
Totally depends, but you're first and foremost a thinking man, those with blind faith are worrried that you're a 'person with a lot of questions' and pray for you.

Friends
Academics, contacts, members of the international blah-blah-blah organization. Not average Joe’s, they think you’re a prick.

Drifter Junior Grade

2006-03-03T16:40:00.000+09:00

So I realize that most of my posts are Japancentric. Most of my friends stop listening when I start a sentence with, "in Japan...", so this post is a nonJapancentric one. I'm reading a book on mythic archytpes in society by Joseph Campbell and it's quite interesting. Concurrently, like all twentysomethingish males, I'm trying to decide which of the many paths of manhood I'd like to follow. So I figured I start a series of possible successful paths that we can take.The key word in that last sentense was successful, not necesarily financial successful, but successful

Ok, this one is close to home for me and I don’t mean it to be demeaning to you Intrepid Travelers, I’m just calling it like I see it….

Drifter (Junior Grade)
Jack Kerouac’s dream incarnate, classless drifters and peaceful warriors are the realizing his prophesy of a rucksack revolution. I’m not talking about people on a gap year, doing a year aboard, vacationers, Semester at Sea students, or people taking a year off, I’m talking about full-fledged drifters with several years in several countries. Because they aren’t from rich families, they have to work their way around the world. Wandering over and across continents they pick fruit at organic farms and teach English at places found in the Alternatives to Tourism chapter of the Lonely Planet guidebook They all have University degrees, mostly earned, but some bought from a guy I know on Koh Saan Road (a place that everyone knows) almost everyone has a Bachelors or Arts degree and few seriously studied math or science.
This group’s primary concern is being where they want to be and not hurting anyone in the process. Military service doesn’t count. Going to as many places and doing as many cool things as possible gives you creds. Guesthouse patrons size each other up by casually recounting what they’ve done and importantly where they’ve done it. For example take these true driftbrags, “When was snowboarding in Japan”, “On a walkabout in Australian”, “we were on a long mountain treks in the Himalayas when…” “I used to bartended in Paris”, “When road tripping Russia…” “I was teaching sailing on (unheard of Mediterranean island)”, or “I had been modeling in the Philippines when…”. Driftbrags usually require some backing up and clarification questions are standard. Taking about home is tolerated but only to an extent among the driftsnobs. Asking for the prices of things at the next stop, and comparing the differences in American and British English are also out that’s lightweight/ first timer stuff.
Older drifters fall into 3 general types: sketchy lonely loser guy, windbag old guy that decided he need to change careers at like 40, and cool older guy that tells a good story and has been every where (more on this dude: Drifter Senior Grade later).
This type of drifter also speaks several languages, the less useful the better, Highland New Guinean slang trumps Japanese, Japanese trumps French, and French trumps Spanish. The drifter junior grade usually doesn’t master any language as he, by definition isn’t in anyplace long enough to learn anything but the basics. As for their English, the vocabulary and intonation eventually becomes a hybrid of American, Australian, and British English. For some reason Americans tend to adopt the British intonation when asking questions, and Brits use Americanized words for cool.
Although this seems new there is nothing new about the drifter junior grade in history, they rowed and sailed the boats, delivered the mail and did shitty jobs for powerful people from the dawn of time.

Level of Bad-ass-itude
Pretty high. The drifter junior grade somewhat respected by his job/wife locked friends, but his wayward lifestyle is seen as flimsy and rootless. As the drifter ages, fewer respect him or even remember him unless he is upgraded to Senior Grade Drifter

Toys
Large rucksack, Ipod, portable laptop

Clothes
Durable, adaptable, generic, Patagonia type stuff or fake.

Car
Yeah right. If you’ve got one it had better be a shitty one

Chicks
Drifters take a shot at the local fare that see him as something bigger than they really are. Drifter couples are somewhat few but respected.

Cash
Several currencies, but few notes. A drifter Junior grade has a job so he’s not scrounging but he’s never around long enough for a promotion.

Worries
Coming home and working at Applebees.

Vacation time
Your always kind of on vacation

Drug
Pot shrooms hallucinogenics in general, unless your in a drugfascist country like China or Japan then its beer or local specialties.

Politics
Way left, but not currently active in politics. But damned if they don't like talking about it.

Religion
Consists of at least three hyphenated faiths like Transendental-Buddhic-Suffi, or Epsicopalian-NeoPagan-Druid,

Friends
Cool interesting worldly people from everywhere.

Master of the Universe

2006-03-03T14:24:00.000+09:00

The Biologically Successful Chump

2006-03-03T09:31:00.000+09:00

So I realize that most of my posts are Japancentric. Most of my friends stop listening when I start a sentence with, "in Japan...", so this post is a nonJapancentric one. I'm reading a book on mythic archytpes in society by Joseph Campbell and it's quite interesting. Concurrently, like all twentysomethingish males, I'm trying to decide which of the many paths of manhood I'd like to follow. So I figured I start a series of possible successful paths that we can take.The key word in that last sentense was successful, not necesarily financial successful, but successful. So this is the first one. Unfortuanatly and deceivingly, this is the most likely:

The Biologically Successful Chump.
Last night I watch some early 90s family crap movie with John Travolta, Christie Ally, some kids, and two talking dogs. The plot was innane but there were some themes that I found quite interessting. I missed the beginning of the movie, but I guess the Travolta charactor was a bit of a rebel. I'm not sure if he was like Bob Marley rebel, drug bloated phychopath rebel, but I'm guessing he was more long hair tennis player rebel. But I guess he was at some point a bit of a nutter. So Kristie Ally apparently "tames" him. Soon thereafter he's got a morgage and normal kids and dogs (that talk) and shit, and other (rich and hot) women start chaising after him. He is the symbol of the domesticated man, boring, groomed, and wearing a suit and able to tango like it's nobodys buisness. He has a decent job, but he's not a master of the universe or anythng. He is our first archytype. A man, once somewhat respectable in the eyes of the cool, married to a honest but somewhat frompy Chritie Ally thinking he's cool cause he can pull of wearing a blue fucking sport coat. Regardless of how much you were able to drink in college, what drugs you once did, or what motorcycle you drove, you are in the eyes of the society a chump.

Level of Bad-ass-itude
Very low. But he does have kids that will be well adjusted, and will be able to go too college. You are just like everyone else, you fit in, and your concerns are normal, and dreadfully boring.

Toys
Not many. Likely a big TV that you waste years in front of, watching network drivel. You probably have a hobby, maybe it's a cool hobby like surfing or snowboarding, but it's more likely gardening. When you’re kids are gone, you’re wife will let you get something cool like an RV, but by then you’re a defeated man.

Clothes
Newish , ‘cause your wife picks them out for you. You don’t really like them, but fuck it. At home you wear what you like, but when you go outside you don’t get to dress yourself. Oh and you have the blue sport coat that you pull off.

Car
Anything with 4 doors and no turbo. Maybe if your lucky a BMW or something when your 50.

Chick
Your chick is your wife. That’s it. She’s whatever ethnicity you are, and she loves you dearly, you’ve forged a spiritual bond and you are the envy of every newly wed. Your sex life isn’t great, but at least its regular. Your wife, once really hot, is now a maternal figure. But she cooks. And at some point that’s all you really want.

Cash
Enough to raise a family, little else.

Worries
Mortgage, kids soccer practice, work is boring.

House
You live in the subburbs of (chose any American city)

Vacation time
Station wagon trips with the kids. You look just like every other loud shirted family man on the open road since 1952. Once a year you meet up with the boys from college for a party weekend, on a lake or something.

Drug
Beer with the boys, wine at dinner and church. That’s it.

Politics
Not that important to you, but you always vote. Depending on how much you make you are either a Democrat or Republican.

Religion
On Sunday you go to some church. You are a guy in the pews, and your wife loves the social aspect. You are not a spacey mystic and you don't want to be.

Friends
Guys like you!! Family men. Chumps. Pretty much everyone is like you. Also you aren’t allowed any female friends whatsoever.

Disjointed Sentences.

2006-03-01T16:06:00.000+09:00

The weekend began as they do. And I got pretty drunk at a 'family resturant' and wandered around the city drinking and getting my beatnik ramble on. Then I ran into a French dude I kinda knew and drank with him, my friend Lucy, and some random Japanese people. It was that kind of bizarre weekend so this blog consists of disjointed sentences from disjointed weekend.

Lets Olympic.

At the combini I bought the Great Escape on DVD. Leading to the natural question, which would you rather fight: Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, or Steve McQueen. Answer McQueen.

Topics most often discussed:

DVDA: arrangement possibilities and recruitment,
Beegers,
Levels of formality in the introduction to Budakke candidate. Do you bow? who arranges it?
The need and type of myths needed in globalized society.
weed.

Drew: “Dude this shit is filthy,” referring to some crunk-as-hell beat with a dude slurring out the lyrics, ”your mother, your father, I fucked your sister,” or something to that general effect.

After listening to crunk you can actually feel yourself losing you education.

Moreover, we got all these crazy expensive quasi-useful degrees and when we graduate we want to go to Australia to pick fruit.

I walked by a random old ass car with nobody in it and took a leak. When I finished my business and walked passed said car it started on its own. A few hours later, while standing around drinking a beer in front of an Okonomiyaki restaurant, a slight zephyr blew by. This slight breeze managed to knock over a huge (6 ft x 2 ft x 2 ft) box shaped glass sign not 5 feet away from me. I wasn’t hurt or anything, but I did convince me that I’m in fact a powerful X-man whose phychokenitic powers need cultivation.

Yuji: “Dude she just eye fucked the shit out of me.” Referring to Japanese High School student. There were many young (too young and too unattractive) girls on the street after dark in Nigitta.

On the slopes:
‘Dude I just lost my Ipod!’
‘What color is it’?
‘White’

Yeah but superior toilet technology is no reason to stay another year’

‘Will loses 2 crunk-points for bringing homemade granola… it’s fucking good though’

‘…That Iranian dude… what’s his name…Armani Jihad or whatever.’

so thats what I remember.

What's going on this weekend?

Who Loves the Sun? Who Cares that it is Shining?

2006-02-23T10:35:00.000+09:00

I love the sun, and I care that it is shining.

The sun was out for three consecutive days. To my Santa Barbara and Thailand brethren and sistren this is as uneventful a statement as, ‘time continued to pass’, but for pale Toyama folk this is miraculous. What tidings of comfort and joy the sun gave us.

At all times, I have to cover all the windows with heavy blankets due to my house's laughable insulation, so in the mornings I can’t really see what kind of horrible weather I will have to walk to on my way to school. If it’s rain I can hear it. But if it’s silent and it looks bright, that means one of two things.

1). It’s a nice day.
2). It’s snowin’ like a motherfucker.

But for three days it’s been nice. Not Santa Barbara flip-flops and farmers markets nice but nice. Today’s pretty rotten, but for 3 days it was, well, bearable.

A Long Response to the Question I'm always asked

2006-02-22T14:57:00.000+09:00

question: I'm thinking about living in Japan do you have any advice?

Well you caught me at a rather strange time to ask how I like Japan. If you’d have asked me at any other time I’d have said, “sell the house, sell the car, sell the kids and get over here”. But lately I’ve been a little pissy due to the lack of sun and native English speakers Plus, I’m finally getting over a particularly nasty flu. Being quite sick away from home is not much fun. Japan is totally strange. The exterior looks like the West, but the mindset and daily life of Japanese people is so totally removed as to make it difficult to find a place to get started. To you a Friedmann-esque medifore, the hardware is the same (except the toilets) but the software is different.This also makes Japan a kick ass place to visit/live, if you can get through it, and don’t mind being totally confused 90% of the time. There are lots of great things to see and do, especially in the big cities of Kyoto and Tokyo. Shrines, temples, and just generally wacky shit are everywhere. I live in a backwater area called Toyama, where nobody speaks any English at all, and I’m the only westerner (gaijin) in my town. Nothing is printed in English so I’m picking up nihongo (Japanese) fairly quickly. People are frightened of me like they think I’m gunna rob them, but a quick smile is disarming. I’d recommend staying in the big cities; the ‘real Japan’ is a little too much like the ‘real Dinuba’. Where is Dinuba? Exactly.

But enough about that… Getting a job is pretty easy, and the pay isn’t too bad. You don’t need a TEFL certificate. I have a CELTA from Cambridge that certifies me to teach to adults, but you don’t really need that to teach, just being a native speaker is more than enough to get a job. Teaching is far and away the easiest way to pay for a life in Japan. I don’t actually know any foreigners who do anything else. Usually you have to sign a contract for at least a year, but it’s not too hard to get a couple gigs without signing up. I’m on the JET program which rocks, cause I get loads of money and perks (free house) but I don’t really have to work that hard. I work as an English teacher in a Japanese public jr. high. JET is defiantly the way to go, as we are by far the most respected foreigners besides the company expats. Unfortunately you have to apply in November and it's kinda tough to get into.

So your options are basically two. You can work for one of the big 4 English schools GEOS, NOVA, and two others I can’t remember. On the plus side the money is enough, they will fly you out and back for free. The also will take care of the visa situation. Rumor has it that you can also get discount Japanese lessons, but I don’t know about that. On the flipside you have to sign a contract usually for about a year, and you basically have to teach straight out of a rather boring book, but you get to teach adults. Because I’m a JET elitist and I don’t live in a town with one of the big ekaiwas I’m don’t know anyone who personally works for the big companies. If you want to teach in Japan this is the easiest and most reliable way to go.

You can also go the private route. Checkout http://www.eslcafe.com/ there is a good jobs site there. This is really tricky cause you can either totally luck out or you’ll be a slave…and you don’t want to be a Japanese slave. Total crap shoot. I used to work for a small private company when I taught in Thailand and it was the most fun place I’d ever worked. These can be especially cool if nihongo o hanasshita koto ga dekimasu. My advise here is to be in good contact with the school before you go. Ask for the email address of someone who works there, and ask them how they like it. Also talk to the person in charge on the phone. If they can speak English well, that’s a really good sign. In my town none of my superiors speak English at all, but there are teachers at my school that lived in Singapore for a while so they totally help me out. Alright now I’m ramblin’ but lemme know if there was anything specific I can help you out with.

It’s also crazy expensive here, but that’s not to say that it’s impossible. In most big cities there are some really nice hostels that aren’t too expensive at all about $40 a night. Food is about the same as in the US. Sushi might be a little cheaper. Beer is expensive though. If you want to stay long-term rent is about SF prices. I’m pretty lucky cause I have a huge free house. Which sounds like it’s cool, but it’s not because its super cold.

Japanese language is pretty wild. There are 3 types or writing: kanji (Chinese words) hiragana (for Japanese words) and katakana (foreign words). All are a little tricky, but pronunciation is really easy. The grammar is really strange, but you get the hang of it. Lots of verb suffixes and stuff like that. The word order is the same as Yoda's (not a coincidence) so if you can sort out what you want to say into Yoda speak your half way there. Personally I like the sound of it, especially in cartoons. Japanese cartoon culture is fantastically rich…so if you’re a nerd like that…. Actually, if you’re any kind of nerd, you should come to Japan.

so lets very enjoy Japan.

Birth of a Blog

2006-02-22T14:36:00.000+09:00

Ok, so I've been blogging on myspace.com for a bit and, well, I just don't like blogging there, I feel like Uncle Murdock is watching me and selling me stuff. Plus I don't like the banners and whistles and bells and stuff on there, especially at work. It's just not cool. Not that blogging, bloggers, or blog readers are all that cool either. But hey, I'm bored, and sometimes your bored too.

So please enjoy...

2006-02-22T14:32:00.000+09:00

Hearing Jesus or Max`s Thanksgiving Tale

It`s been said that Americans can make an epic novel over a trip to the pharmacy. It is in this spirit that I write a pointlessly long slightly boring blog entry on going to the pharmacy....and hearing Jesus.

So for the past 3 weeks or so my hearing was getting worse and worse. When i was late to work because I didn`t hear my alarm ringing right next to my head I knew I had to do something about it. For those you who know me well you know that I`m not the most proactive person regarding health issues, and I like creative solutions. Case in point Aaron`s successful living room minor surgery. So after the lack of hearing had become intolerable I decided to fix the damn thing.

First Attempt: Pharmacy.

I ask, using hand language and sound effects asked for some sort of non-prescription ear drops (headtilted horizontaly and BLOOP BLOOP BLOOP effects) or something to ear-enema myself with (head tilted woooooosh effects). No dice. Bowing and appology furry ensue. result: FAIL

Second Attempt: 100 yen stor

I decided that I don`t need fancy medicines and such; I`ll solve my problem with a little creative thinking a turkey baster (99cents), a small bottle of rubbing alcohol (99cents), wine vineger (99 cents), and my stove. So I mix up the alchohol and viniger, heat it up pretty hot, and blast (baste?) my ears with it. It makes things much worse. Now my ears smell like a drunkerd, are slightly burned, and even more clogged than before. I admit defeat and set the morning alarm to vibrate. Result FAIL

Third Attempt: Hearing Jesus.

After my backyard surgery fix was unsuccessful, I decided to go to the hospital. The hospital system in Japan rules, but that not the point. So, I meet Hearing Jesus. He looks at my magnified ear, "naka ni berry berry hahto deshita ne? Takusan mimikuso arimasu." (Translation: It was very very hot inside wasn`t it. There is a lot of ear shit). The nurse slams (yes, slams) my head into the chair, "No move". Then Hearing Jesus sticks a funnel in my ear milimeters from my brain and turns on his Jesus-class ear shit removal vacumn to 11. I can hear (because it`s in the core of my ear) wax being pulled out after he painfully wiggles the buisness end of this thing around for a while. Then sticks in another cone. Using this one to seperate my ear canal...ouch he starts pulling wax out chopstick style. Sure enough there was "taksun mimikuso arimasu" and my hearing was so improved that I can hear the desperate cries of the flies complainig how cold it is. Lets enjoying hearing with hearing Jesus! Result: SUCCESS!!.

So this Thanksgiving I`m thankful to Hearing Jesus

Zen Bones and Tokyo Mad Kick

2006-02-22T13:57:00.000+09:00

Hey guys hope your all recovering from Christmas New Years etc.

Yeah its new years here in Japan and I had a real strange goof that I’d like to write about. If you don’t want to read about it that’s cool too, nothing of consequence happens, just a bunch of stupid bullshit actually. But I’ll try to make it readable. I apologize in advance for the length (and over reliance on parenthesis).

First stage: Zen Bones

For whatever reason I’ve found myself in the Zen gobbly-gook brain bender for a couple of years now, and finally I had a chance to go to a real zendo http://tekishin.org/ and practice sitting and breathing. When I entered the temple (through the side door to show humility), I met a bald gaijin (foreigner) dressed in modest indigo robes. He introduced himself in English as Gentoku, the head Zen foreign student of the temple. His last name was Zurbriggen and he was Swiss-German. As I’d soon find out a Swiss German Zen Master is a very precise person indeed.
Soon after I arrived it was time for sutra reading. Sutras are sort of like Christian prayers except they are in Pali, the ancient language that the Buddha spoke-and are read at mach II. I was given a 25 page-deteriorating booklet with random syllables on it. Next thing I know everyone is standing yelling, “zabutsugonijishabutsuofzenji” (not kidding) and shit and I’ve already lost my place and just start mumbling. I am not alone; some of the people know pages and pages of his incomprehensible blabber by heart and recite it with great gusto while the rest of us just sound like self-conscious bees. Each sutra goes on for about 4 pages. One guy is banging on a drum and ringing a bell to keep time. When he rings it twice it means the sutra is almost over. Everyone slows down to a comprehensible speed for the last couple lines and I join in like I’d been following the whole time feeling clever and a little guilty. Suddenly everyone hits the deck forehead to the ground hands up. Then stands up again and again. Thankfully a young Japanese girl named Hamada san (indeterminable age, overbite) is sitting next to me (bless her heart) shows me three fingers, I realize that we will do this three times. I was right. Then we sat.
Sitting and breathing. So I sat in the half lotus position (Indian sty…errrr cross-legged with left foot on right thigh) and breathed (breathed?) for a couple hours at 30 min intervals everyday starring blurrily—no glasses-- at a raked sand and stone garden in front of me. Unlike other forms of meditation, including my favored Vappassanna style, Zen mediation (zazen) has no focus. Just sit and breathe. This seems to be very easy. It is not. The sitting position is very uncomfortable. Buddha’s seated position is like Jesus’ Cross, it represents peaceful living in the midst of immeasurable suffering. Anyways. We sit and suffer trying not to think. Just breath. All the sudden an old Japanese guy breaks out of his seated position and the (Swiss) Zen dude goes completely ape shit (without moving) and starts yelling at him in impolite Japanese something to the tune of “Don’t fucking move”. Whatever he said, it scared the hell out of me enough to not move during zazen regardless of the intense pain. Most of the time I hung in there, but when it gets bad I feel like I’m in the pit of hell screaming for that son of bitch to ring the damn bell and end it all.
This sort of stuff goes on for days. Eventually I start to get the hang of it and it’s not so bad mentally. Physically is another story. My right hip hurts like crazy, but my mind is becoming more like Mt Fuji, who doesn’t give a crap about anything and never scratches his nose or move his legs or leaks snot cause he doesn’t have that stuff. Just loads of dirt. Fuji-san is a very respectable Buddha.
Zen meals are pretty mental. The vegetarian food is grown on the temple grounds and is really tasty though sparse, mostly daikon (radish) carrots, and sweet potatoes. There is no talking. Movements are to be exact and silent. To get a sense of it here are some things the master said: “don’t use your hands”, “pick up the bowl”,” don’t pick up the bowl”, “use your right hand”,” use your left hand” etc. At each second of the meal there is a precise action to be done. Buddhist monks in many countries have done each precise action identically for the last 2500 years and it’s comforting to remember that they all fucked up in the beginning. What else…. Oh yeah the guesthouse.
The guesthouse is where the male students stay. It’s about 15 minutes away from the temple in a quiet area of respectable families and snow covered rice fields. The building is a 400-year-old maze of a building with UNESCO class woodwork carefully cleaned by the newest monks everyday (me and a talkative Swede who pronounces “th” as an “f’). It was as cold as it was beautiful. The outer wall is paned glass then there is a wooden walkway with rice paper walls that separate each room. Semi-transparent rice and glass are shitty insulators, but my Marmot-synthetic-down-John-Muir-and-Jeremy’s –living-room-floor-tested sleeping bag and a mound of thick futons did the trick. I slept like a baby and snored like a Romanian dragon as did my other three Japanese, Swedish, and English roommates. Meditation gives you fantastic vivid dreams. One morning I woke up thinking-talking “Stupid Flanders and his chocolate boats---- HOLY SHIT NUCLEAR ATTACK!!” (At 4:50am lights go on). Strange. But I guess anything is strange when you’re awoken by a high-pitched bell and blinding light at that hour.
Christmas was pretty uneventful. We ate a Christmas cake that one of the new guys brought with him and had some green tea. The two Siberian Russian guys who were like brothers (one quiet, one loud), the Swede, the Germans and I sang a few Christmas songs, but that was about it. Christmas dinner was a far cry from my mom and dad’s delicious cooking. We had left over rice soup with no vegetables. It was ok though

After going to the zendo (zen temple) outside Kyoto to some pretty extreme pain in my right hip) I caught the night bus to Tokyo to visit Devin. Little did I know how integrated into his host family he is. His host sister Kiwako is almost his sister. It’s funny to watch them together. Anyways, I was worried about not being able to sleep on the night bus so before it left I drank two bottles of gut rot chardonnay in the bus station and slept like a tranquilized bear. Unfortunately I’m fairly sure i snored like one too because when I woke up the Japanese guy next to me gave me a dirty look. Anyways when I got to Tokyo, Devin was there to meet me at the station, which was really cool. He has very good karma and has helped me out more often than I care to say. We ended up walking around some of the hip areas of Tokyo alternating between coffee and beer. It was pretty sweet. Then we met up with my jet buddy Jake and hung out a bit. In Shabuya we went to a cool Punk bar and Devin met a cute and very interesting girl named Mariko that seemed pretty into him. I think she’s already emailed him so that’s good too. Later Devin`s friend Yuuka (two Us I think) drove her 740i BMW to an exclusive club in God knows where Tokyo. It was a pretty posh place and we had a good time dancing. Unfortunately we forgot to take off our layers of keepwarm clothes and overheated quckly. Lots of very cute rich Japanese girls with swimming pools, rich looking Japanese guys with haircuts and even a few Sumo wrestlers who, I might add, are surprisingly agile on the dance floor. We stayed out late and came home drunk and thirsty having accidentally given our US$3 bottle of Pocari Sweat to a gay dude (who wasn’t really gay I guess) who kept putting his hands down Devin and my back pockets. I fell asleep in the car home and started snoring. Again.

New Years morning I woke up very late (1:00) at the host family’s large house. I wasn’t hungry but it was time to eat. I wasn't interesting in being awake or appearing to be awake. I sorta stumbled downstairs into the dining room and to my surprise a very long table is FILLED with food. The centerpiece being a spider crab at least a foot in diameter. It was like going into a Japanese restaurant and ordering one of everything. Around the table are Devin’s host mother, father, sister and woman of indeterminable age possibly aunt. Yeah aunt I think. Thankfully everyone else was up late drinking Korean wine and didn’t feel the need to dress up. Also I guess New Years is a big holiday to be spent with family, kinda like Thanksgiving. There is a lot of etiquette involved in eating in Japan, especially so if one is a guest in someone’s house. So I did my best not to screw up and I think I did fairly well. Althewhile everyone was asking me lots of questions and I was trying MOST unsuccessfully to answer in Japanese. Thankfully Devin and his host sister Kiwako were able to help me out a lot. After lunch/dinner we watched a hilarious Japanese TV show called "paper driver" in which Japanese people who have drivers licenses and never used them are given their boss’s cars and forced to perform difficult driving tasks around Japan. Then they are told to drive assorted equipment at high speed around a course. It`s amazingly funny.

The Sake Sumo Sutra

2006-02-22T13:44:00.000+09:00

Well I'm back at "work" in quotations because I hardy do anything. I just talk to kids all day. I just having a blast. Last Thursday I signed my papers to recontract for another year. It's just too much fun. Here's why:

Winter is pretty miserable it snow/rains all day everyday. It's just awful. A couple days ago i was walking down the street with my umbrella up and an obasan (old lady) laughed an old lady laugh and said, "ume shiimasen" (It's not raining). I go outside, I put up the umbrella. Reflex. BUT: Yesterday I went snowboarding with friends. It was the first time I'd ever snowboarded and I was pathetic for about 10 minutes. I got it wired almost immediately and by the end of the day I was flying across the mountain with the best of 'em. It's a lot like the easy parts of surfing. I don't think I've ever been that good at anything that fast. I was a great feeling. I can't wait for next weekend 'cause we're going to Nagano (winter Olympics '92?) on a snowboarding trip, should be awesome.

I was tempted to going to the slops again today, but had to get a bunch of odds and ends taken care of. Got a haircut, paid bills, got new tatami mats, and I got a track suit-- which I'm wearing now. For some (Japanese) reason at school I can wear a sport coat and necktie or a track suit. While track suits are totally ridiculous, they're more comfortable than business clothes. When I Rome and all that.

Today was Nabe (winter soup) day in a nearby town. As you can see it's cooked in big pots. It's really good stuff. The directions to get there are pretty funny:

Exit the train station, go straight past the castle. You'll see a blue and red Pachinko parlor that says'"Alpha vs. Pluto" on it. Turn right. go straight til you see a huge Buddha. The pots are in front of it. Lastly, I got home-- full of soup wearing a tracksuit with a bag full of sushi and sake (;;;;;drinking now;;;;;)-- to watch my two favorite shows on TV. The first is sumo which is great, there..'s a Bulgarian that..'s climbing the ranks. Very exciting. Second is a show pronounced /paypah du-rai-ba/ (paper driver) which features Japanese people with drivers licenses but never drive being forced to navigate their boss..'s cars around difficult areas in Tokyo. It..'s AMAZING. Whatta great week I..'m ready for 52 more much love, may yeah I almost forgot (stupid sake) I..'m coming home at the end of July/early August for my friend John Higgins wedding. I..'ll be in California for a couple weeks. WHhoo hhoo

Lastly, I got home-- full of soup wearing a tracksuit with a bag full of sushi and sake (;;;;;drinking now;;;;;)-- to watch my two favorite shows on TV. The first is sumo which is great, there's a Bulgarian that's climbing the ranks. Very exciting. Second is a show pronounced /paypah du-rai-ba/ (paper driver) which features Japanese people with driver's licenses but never drive being forced to navigate their boss's cars around difficult areas in Tokyo. It's AMAZING.

Whatta great week I'm ready for 52 more

much love,

max

I'm a feverish, illiterate, slob and your friends with me (a story-rant)

2006-02-22T13:32:00.000+09:00

Sorry I just gotta bitch, Im spotting so I think my period is coming on. You can read it or not. Your definantly better off not reading this, it will have no effect on your life. Go brush your teeth or call your grandma instead. She'd like that.

Ok that said. Its story time.
'Goo moaning Makusu sensei. You dough look so good today'. Fujita always says this, some times he doesn't even look at me. He just lets it fly. In actuality I dont look very well on account of the fact that that morning my water pipes were frozen, and I just had to walk 20 min in the snow to work. I slipped on the ice twice. 'Do you have any play pretend phones yet?'
'Uhhh, phones?'
'for skit?'
'skit?'
'Yes first grade students next next (not a typo) Thursday have make phone skit.' Why I'm expected to have fake phones for an event in the semi-distant future that Im not aware of is beyond me. So miraculously the 100-yen store has some fake phones that ring and are totallly sweet. Mission Accomplished. Hurdle jumped. Everyday has it's mission, little did I know that things were going to take a turn for the worse.

'Goo moaning Makusu sensei, you dough look so good today, too.' Fuck you. I actually feel like shit, sore throat etc. By nightfall Ive got a full-blown fever and I feel horrible. Its like all the bad parts of being stoned.

Days pass. Still sick. Phone call. Unknown number. I risk it.

'Mushi Mushi Max desu', I answer delusionally.
'Max sensei, this is Rumiko,' Ahhh, thank God. I really love this woman, she pronounces my name correctly and saves my ass. We teach English together and she gets it. Unfortunately she gets it a little too much and sometimes I think shes suicidal. Pleasantries are exchanged I find out that she got in a car crash on a bridge.
'Are you ready for next Wednesday?' uhh oohh thats the preface for something bad.
'Wednesday?' Grown. Cough. Fever high and sympathy needed.
'The speech.'

Squiggily doo Squigggily doo Squiggily doo

Flashback about 3 months; lets sayuh September ish.

Everyday a shit load of totally irrelevant papers cross my desk, I scan them for two things, my name in Japanese, and the kanji for English. A lone sheet of paper waiting on my desk has red official looking stamps all over it and a date 2/15. This is potentially very bad. I like surprises, but not red stamp official surprises. Maybe I'm being deported. 'Rumiko sensei, whats this?'

'Hummm,' she reads the paper, 'Are you free February 15th next year?' a totally random Wednesday calendar pages away.
'Uh, I guess so why?' I couldnt say I was busy; it was deep in the future.
'You have to give a speech for 30 minutes for the Rotary Club just a minute.' She starts speaking frantic Japanese with principal, and Im thinking: alright speech, not a problem, Ill just charm em and talk about bullsh....
'...in Japanese.' The other shoe has dropped.

Flash forward to sick on couch.

'Oh yeah, the speech.'
'Are you ready?'
'No, I havent even thou...' door bell rings, just a minute, someones at the door

'Goo moaning Makusu sensei, you dough look so good.' Ahh well look who it is! Just who I wanted to see. Fujita actually came to my house to tell me in his shitty broken ass English that I didnt look so good. WOW, NO SHIT, Ive been in this Goddamn sleeping bag unshaven sweating out a gnarly fever for days taking nonfunctioning Japanese medicine, prescribed by a doctor I didn't understand, from a hospital that I had to walk to in the snow.
'Your house not so clean, you need girlfriend clean up for you.' Unbelievable, he managed to insult my hygiene, my lack of sex life, and my language in a mere eleven words.

I started feeling better and decided I was well enough to go to my Japanese lesson. My teacher lookeed upset.

'Konban wa, sensei.' Good evening teacher.
'Ah Max san, You dont have any Japanese friends do you? Because I can tell you Japanese isn't improving.' (in English)

So here I am post-sick and 7 pounds lighter with a messy room and a crummy beard desperately writing a 30-minute speech to give in a language I barely speak.

These last couple weeks havent been bad. They've been scathing.