Cosmic Truck Stop!!
November 14, 2009, 9:04 am
—Greg | no comments
(posted in the livin' category)
Big Bad Typhoon
October 8, 2009, 2:02 pmToday was joyous. Last night was joyous, with the call coming through that all tomorrow’s lessons (not parties) are canceled. Why? THE TYPHOON! THE BIGGEST AND BADDEST MOTHERFUCKER OF A TYPHOON TO EVER HIT THIS PREFECTURE! stay inside and lock the doors! (except salarimen, they have to go to work and spend 4 hours waiting for a train to just show everyone that they waited 4 hours on the train to go to work, suckers) this typhoon is gonna bitch slap Chiba like no typhoon before it! … and it was a beautiful day, couldn’t've asked for anything better. Windy as hell, but beautiful. The trains were stopped and anyone stupid enough to go to work anyway (my sister in law) deserves to wait in train station limbo. I took my daughter out to play in typhoon and we had a grand ol’ time chasing leaves and throwing rocks around. Spent the afternoon with Miho’s great aunt and uncles listening to their gambling stories, occasionally checking the time in order to chuckle and think about where I’d be dragging my sorry ass right now if this typhoon hadn’t come along and knocked out the trains. Thank you, Typhoon 18. Thanks for the sunshiny, windy and blessedly restful day. You’re welcome back anytime.
—Greg | no comments
(posted in the livin' category)
Surrounded By Idiots On Both Sides, I Choose The Japanese Idiots
October 8, 2009, 12:20 amOkay, not idiots maybe, but silly people. Let me explain…
I was coming home on my usual train after a night of teaching. This train always smells somehow of sake and fried foods. It’s the 10:00 Friday Night Keiyo line that connects up with the Sotobo. Half of the train is somewhat inebriated usually, but there isn’t much activity, just a little swaying and maybe some loud talking and jabbing fingers, not even half the action you get on the Saturday night last train from Tokyo.
So here I was getting on the last door of the last car, and even before I stepped foot into the train I heard those moronic voices from long ago. Broadcast loudly over the entire length of the train car, I could hear it, “Naw, dude… no way yer getting off this train, brah… dude, c’mawn…” It was pure authentic americanese being spoke right there in Keiyo line Japan!
Well, I got on, unsheathed the book and started reading, not caring too much about it, but then it went on and on and it was kind of funny. It was the usual drunk talk; a guy repeating himself over and over again saying things to the tune of “dude, stay on the train, it’s just one stop… dude, I’m NOT letting you off this train, naw way dawg…”
I had to look. Three big guys with protruding bellies. The guy talking was non-descript in everyway except for the fact that he wasn’t Japanese like everyone else. He was facing me, backwards ball cap perched on head, at the next door of the car. The guy he was talking to was facing the other way. Also outfitted in backwards baseball cap, the unofficial uniform of moron america, but sitting on his luggage (they all had luggage). He was apparently the one wanting off the train. There was a third guy, with backward baseball cap and giant pink wrap around sunglasses of the type favored by guys like him, quietly guffawing and redfaced.
I’ve gotten to where I can spot English teachers. They always look either kind of naive and overly friendly, or they look really dorky and trying to be over-professional. These guys were definitely not English teachers. I can only assume they were army guys because they looked like guys who might’ve tried to beat me up in high school.
Finally, the dude got off. After that, the one who was talking was in fits of headshaking and going “naw dude” and he was calling the guy. I heard Pink Shades say “when’s our stop” and the other had no idea, he said “I dunno a stop or two” and they had to ask two tiny young women standing near the door, before which there was some “dude, just ask her” and giggling. The guy was on his cell phone calling Dude, and then he was going “aw dude, he’s not answering. Man, that’s just like him, I told him over and over, dude, do NAHT get off this train…” and so on.
But here’s what’s funnier than watching drunk foreigners on the train: watching Japanese people watch drunk foreigners. Or any foreigners. Whenever I see an Indian lady or a middle eastern guy, or a group of chuckling pasty white English teachers, I switch my attention to the Japanese folks in the vicinity and watch them steal glances at them.
As you can imagine, the looks tonight were hateful. And there were lots of them. Too many. I wondered why people would spend so much time not staring at their video games, listening to their iPods or reading newspapers, and why they would spend so much energy hating these buffoons who should really just be ignored. It’s funny, nobody ever even acknowledges anyone’s existence on the trains, but now they were really acknowledging and acknowledging. All for nothing though, because nobody would ever actually lower themselves to SAY anything. I wish people would pay that kind of attention to old people when they get on the train looking for a seat and nobody gives them one.
Okay, rant finished. For now.
But here’s a guy looking at ME. The same look too. Looking at me like I’m somehow responsible for these idiots being noise as hell. One frog-faced middle aged drunk swinging by the overhead handrails gave me a long dull-eyed look which at first seemed like a head shaking kind of “wow, what idiots” look, but then there was something kind of accusing about it. Then some lizard-faced suit standing by the window gave ME a disdainful look, like I was somehow involved in it.
It’s pretty easy to see I don’t know those guys. And when I came home and told my wife the story, doing perfect impersonations of the dawgs and everything, she said “ooh, weren’t you ashamed?” I said “of what? they aren’t friends of mine.” Still don’t know what she meant by that.
Ah well, I enjoyed it anyway. Good people watching is hard to come by on this side of the pond.
—Greg | no comments
(posted in the livin' category)
Street Thug Juku
September 20, 2009, 3:10 pmThis is funnier than something I could have made up (and true!)…
Japanese gangsters forced to sit exams in crime
The battle-scarred gangsters of Japan’s most infamous underworld group, the Yamaguchi-gumi, are being forced to study for an exam covering the key aspects of their trade.
By Julian Ryall in Tokyo
Published: 7:00AM BST 07 Sep 2009
Gang bosses have introduced the written tests for their subordinates since the Anti-Organised Crime Law was revised last year, making the group’s leaders responsible for the actions of street-level members.
—Greg | no comments
(posted in the livin' category)
The Finest Food Of Hokkaido Is…
September 20, 2009, 3:09 pmSo, last weekend my wife and precious child went to Hokkaido without me and with her family, because I travel a lot with the band by myself and also because I had my last few days of clock watching and wondering what I could do to kill time at the office that I had to attend to… so they were supposed to come back Wednesday but ended up coming back on Friday on account of the fact that something or other that they pulled out of the ocean and ate fresh was too fresh and in fact swarming with bacteria, which left my wife and her mom taking turns running to the bathroom and taking turns shooting it out of both ends, while Nico walked up and down stairs, grabbed things and scattered them around rooms, and played happily with whatever she could reach and had a good ol’ time.
Of course, she brought back some goodies from Hokkaido for me to sample. As anybody knows, the goodiest of Hokkaido’s goodies are things that crawl on ocean bottoms - sea urchins, scallops, squids, wiggly thingies, tentacled beasts of the deep, etc. She brought out a couple tupperware containers of these slimy and recently killed things and laid out a spread for me. “this isn’t what you guys ate was it?” I said of course trying to be on the safe side cuz that’s my way and she looked quickly up at the ceiling and said “no, it should be okay,” and while I was eating I heard her in the other room saying to her mom on the phone “it’s okay for me to feed him that isn’t it” so I had a hearty sampling of everything and said “thanks that was great” and went about my business. It was great, and I’m not a big fan of sea urchin or uni as it’s called in Japanese, but it was good, or at least that’s what she said. Apparently this is the type of sea urchin people pay loads of money for in posh ass places in Tokyo, but when I suggested we sell the shit and make some money she said it probably has to be packaged nicely and not just wrapped up in plastic wrap for people to shell out cash for it. It’s not actually the urchin itself but the stuff they squeeze out of it, by the way. What bodily fluid that is exactly I’m not sure.
But finally, I’m going to tell you the absolute best and most delicious thing they brought back, and believe it or not it was good old fashioned straight out of the earth CORN that’s right CORN, and it was incredible. Sweet, juicy, just like the corn I used to eat as a kid in Missouri. Holy moly it was amazing and I ate three ears of it about 20 minutes ago and didn’t heat them up or put salt and butter on them or anything, just chomped right at em and my belly is happy.
—Greg | no comments
(posted in the livin' category)
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