mr baseball

Have a Nice Time

2008-10-01T00:19:00.005+09:00

Goodbye to private karaoke booths
Goodbye to toilets that clean your bum with 5 pressure settings and two temperature settings
Goodbye to Japanese dogs
Goodbye to Jimmy in Japan
Goodbye to old men that refused me in their bars
Goodbye to young people that bought me drinks
Goodbye to yakuza that punched me in the chest
Goodbye to studios with Y300 an hour guitars for rent
Goodbye cherry blossoms
Goodbye safe city
Goodbye to clean city
Goodbye to leg city, even in grip of coldest winter
Goodbye to obasans walking slow in front of me, drunken salarymen weaving in front of me, or girls with pigeon toes moving in 6 inch heels, while my legs itch to go
Goodbye to sitting on Shinjuku platform in the grey dawn waiting 1 hour for the first train home with all the other exhausted all nighters
Goodbye to my bicycle 1 month ago when I got a flat
Goodbye to being confused with my taller, Scottish, bigger nosed, darker hair friend Andy
Goodbye to bureaucracy that never bends, my favourite instance being a bank that required me to order a custom stamp with my name on it (2-3 days) go to the city office and have it registered, then use it at the bank to open an account.
Goodbye to waiting in Mitaka station 100s of hours
Goodbye to being the worst dressed person on every occasion
Goodbye to getting a little excited every time my train from the suburbs gets close to Shinjuku
Goodbye to being a king of Japanese in bars and restaurants:
"Nama biru kudasai"
"Nani kore-ga des ka?"
"Nai nai, daijobu"
and a pauper everywhere else
Goodbye to my money
Goodbye to feeling the truth that Tokyo is the world's richest city when I go to Yurakucho at night and walk by its buildings of wealth and power
Goodbye to one boss that gets off on fear and another that stopped responding to my urgent requests
Goodbye to travelling 45 minutes to get condoms that fit right
Goodbye to speaking loudly about someone's style while they're ear is right up to my mouth
GOodbye to being bored to tears in some lessons that I've perfected 2 terrific ways to hide a yawn and 2 ridiculous ones (scratching, pretending my throat itches, fake coughing, and dropping a pen then yawning under the table)
Goodbye to communists and anarchists good fighting in the most capitalist entrenched city I could imagine
Goodbye to Tokyo night view from a boat in the harbour
Goodbye to fresh sashimi at 8 am
Goodbye to all the people of Big World, I see you and hear you every day
Goodbye to me and Caitlin's voice sounding nice together
Goodbye to great students like Naoki: "Hey Naoki, how was your week?" "I found a partner for my life. Would you come to our wedding party?"
Goodbye to my kids classes
Goodbye to singing "At the Beach"
Goodbye to kids that clean up and who try and those who clean up and dont try
Goodbye to teaching
Goodbye to Zen meditation
Goodbye to falling asleep on the man who fell asleep beside me on the train
Goodbye to "Do you like Japanese girl?" "Why did you come to Japan?" "You can use chopsticks?"
Goodbye to little kids alone on the train
Goodbye to never swimming
Goodbye to Robaya and its employees that invited me into their homes
Goodbye to students I had crushes on
Goodbye to Tommy Lee Jones staring down at me from the billboards
Goodbye to being pakt like sardines
Goodbye to being a quick sketcher and understandable hand actioner
Goodbye to half Japanese girls, you do it to me every time
Goodbye Tokyo, I hated you and loved you, give or take

Ja ne, mata ne,
Da-ni-e-ru

It's Official

2008-08-22T13:33:00.002+09:00

I'm leaving Japan October 1st for India then Paris then New York City, and then home come November. In the light of leaving, Tokyo has become the greatest, sweetest, exciting, shining place and 5 more weeks doesnt feel like enough for a last romp with this gigantic ol' gal.

Burning Hands

2008-08-19T13:21:00.003+09:00

In June, Andy, Caitlin and myself were barred from entering what in a previous post I called the best bar in Tokyo by a jingoistic owner. Luckily for us the owner was so bigoted that we ended up in Hiro, a blues bar where we talked about our love of '50s and '60s rock n roll and soul stuff, and BAM! Blazing Cranes were born (although possible names included Norio's Orioles, and Tender Loving Cranes). With the irrepressible Leo Chen, we've been booking studios from Tachikawa to Tachikawa and writing and recording these songs found here:

http://www.myspace.com/blazingcranes

More are a coming.

La Dolce Vita

2008-08-13T22:39:00.019+09:00

Like 1920s aristocrats,

Andy, Jamie, and myself took a boat last Thursday night for Niijima, an island about 160 km south of Tokyo.

There were these things and you bet your ass there were acoustic guitars plunking to the sweet progressions of he and he for all the surfers, snorkelers, fishers and other tattooed pleasure seekers on that island (try and keep it a secret by the way).

It's Fun to Rap on Voice Recognition Software

2008-07-28T14:41:00.004+09:00

Ventura hear the DNA to a sell narcotics U.S. aid me an apparent to me and Lorenzo Roman of bans all of the attitude was that for john R Reid goalies outside one if there's any outside is ask you will stall on any mother thought that if you fall to scoff of CBT, told itself I tell me you're young made on the warpath to one of the rest is gonna be a bloodbath of cops dive in La La dry gas on the set

Nine yen for
Who can n-
Ame the original rap.

Whole World 21

2008-07-28T12:57:00.009+09:00

Its could be easy to generalize about Tokyo into these very reductive terms, to assume a monoculture pervading every twist down the narrow streets. It could be especially easy to do this as an English conversation teacher for stable, career-minded middle to upper class people, who generally fall into these patterns:

-Engineer
-Office Lady
-Salaryman
-Housewife
-University student working hard to become one of the above or a flight attendant (if they're women)

And who generally discuss these hobbies (in order):
-Working Over Time (and not in the cool BTO way, but in the worn out way*)
-Shopping
-watching DVDs
-listening to J-Pop
-sitting in cafes
-not dancing

Meaning when a student expresses something different, I hop all over it like an excited rabbit, talking out of my ass just to keep it going: "You love breakdancing? Me too!! Tell me lots of things about it."

Toss in the overbearing patriarchy, and when I'm at work I sometimes think of Tokyo as a technologically advanced version of the American 1950s or like Gotham City in Batman Returns.

(Based on the research I've been doing, its own 1950s was a lot wilder and stranger, right after the war with civil society developing rapidly to clamour for control: mass union strikes and passionate pacifist organizations fighting the elites who had been bowed back from their war loss.)

Anyway, what saves me from western myopic high handedness is living in Big World 21, a guest house that leads out onto an old execution ground from the Edo period.

Usually, after jet lag has blown away, the teachers my company sends here seek out new, cleaner, more private places to live. I stayed, and its here that has given me my most present, banal, ridiculous, and terrific experiences. Because my area is far from renowned and is west of west Tokyo's great working class neighbourhood (Koenji), and even Tokyo's hidden gem (Kichijoji), the people that come here are the weirdos, the poor, the unemployed, the underworked, the artistic and the expats. Its a fucked up mix and its great.

Here are some of the people in shorthand:

SATORU - late 20s, he ran away from his gang life in his hometown and became a fantastic chef here in Tokyo. He's about to follow his girlfriend Ruth to England.

MOTOI - drugs and graffiti and raves and one cooking job to another. He's the boyfriend of

KANAKO - 18 years old, she lives here far from her parents for mysterious reasons. For sometime after she arrived she was getting red faced drunk every night and was treated like an object by a lot of older guys here because she's really pretty. She cooks post-war meals like cabbage and lentil soup.

SHIN CHAN - mid 20s Dancing and DJing. When a group of us went to a dance club, he disappeared after an hour. We got worried when the club closed at 5am and I had to peek over every closed toilet stall to make sure he wasnt passed out in one. We finally got him on the phone and he was in the ecstatic at some party way down the street.

YUICHIRO - Awful guy in leather pants. He's a sleaze and boyfriend to

SOYOUNG - from South Korea, she's amazing and in my videos and I had a massive crush on her for months, but I've given up when I saw how much planning she put into Yuichiro's birthday. She's studying computer science and hates it.

KIYOTAKA - finally left. He works for a patent office, and was one of the oldest here, mid 30s. He described Big World as Neverland. He also goes to sex parties. Super great in his own way.

ARLENE - from the Phillipines and working various jobs. She stays up till 7 every morning, and came with me to translate at the doctor's when i cut the shit out of my hand. But she had to put on makeup first.

AKIKO - really nice and learning photography, but the closest thing to evil I've met - she works for the Stars & Stripes news outlet in Tokyo.

VIVIAN - in a metal band that's signed to a label in the UK and works in a warehouse. I forget her real name and am too embarrassed to ask again, but her stage name is Vivian Slaughter. When I asked her how her show went last week, she showed me the awful bruises on her arm and said, "Great!"

EIJI - one of those people that when I see them in a play or movie you think, 'I hate when writers put in someone so unrealistic. How can I believe a person like this exists?' He exists. He tried for years to get a job as a security guard for the U.S. army base, and when he finally passed the test, he had to quit because of a hip problem. He bought a red sports car and doesnt have a license. He takes pictures of foreign women who live in the Big World. And he makes terrible terrible jokes and gives advice on how to pick up women. "Ah, I see you are eating pineapple. Japanese people say, "pine". Do you like pine? Hahaha. If you see Phillipine girl, give her pineapple. Phillipine girl loves pineapple. They love it. Hahaha."

SHINEI – a wonderful cook, a man too polite, an artist working hard to become a children's book maker. He is also working as an english teacher, and studies idioms everyday. Because of this, his english sounds too perfect and polished, like a robot trying to pass off for human:
"Hey Shinei, the police took your bike away cause you parked it illegally? That sucks!"
"Well as you know, that is the way the cookie crumbles."
...but it costs like 5000Yen to get it back though right?"
"Yes, this will certainly burn a hole in my pocket and leave me without a penny to my name."

AI & YU - living in the same room. Its only funny if you pronounce their names right.

KIM PAN - a Korean baker who was in the special forces for the Korean army. He does 200 pushups in one sitting. I'm up to 48 now. We act like Marx brothers around each other because any other language but slapstick is too difficult between us.

MAYUMI – works in a hostess bar complimenting salarymen as she sits on their laps.

A 32 year old and his 16 year old girlfriend, nameless to me, started dating when he stopped a man from molesting her on the train.

SUSHIL – A Hindu who managed to abstain from drinking for about 2 days of moving here from India.

And many more!

*The most extreme case I've heard of...one of my students, Atsushi told me that he had to work 20 hours straight on a weekend. I asked him how he can possibly do that...coffee? "No no coffee...lots of Coke. And I dont eat." "You dont eat for 20 hours isnt that insane?" "It's very difficult."

Sleeping and Dreaming

2008-07-14T18:38:00.013+09:00

Okay, so I'm back from Hokkaido where the G8 summit was carrying on, and I joined many activists and professors and media to shout and scream and carry on as much as we 3000 could against those 21 000 police.

I travelled there with Jon

from Haneda airport in Tokyo where we fell asleep

to Sapporo where we awoke in mid air.

We drank delicious Sapporo Classics

and tried to get oriented around the city centres where activists would congregate. We had bought a tent and sleeping bags but ended up sleeping at a media centre

and showering here.

We stayed for the biggest protest in Sapporo

where police smashed the window of a soundtrack blasting Bjork's "declare independence" for the fierce dancing crowd, and pulled out the driver and wrestled away the DJ for no fucking reason but to kill our spirits.

Later the police protected a soundtruck blasting right wing nationalist hate, and when I was filming them up close for the G8Media Network, I was privy to the exceptional fear of standing in front of a 100 police who suddenly all push down their face masks in one sudden action, and appear ready to charge. So I stepped back for this photo.

Other times the police were very funny, standing guard with intimidating faces all over the city, and then being exceptionally polite and helpful when I go up to ask them where the public bath is (3 days of that sink was too much).

Cleaned up, Jon and I and some new anarchist friends of ours hit the town for a punk club

where I promptly fell asleep amidst the din. In the morning light we headed back for the media centre where we were told there was going to be a police raid with fear of deportation.

Jon needing to come back to Japan some day for his lovely girlfriend Ai, and me to stay to keep working decided to wander back to the great park in the centre of town and sleep till

our bus for Hakodate

The next day we took a train for Onuma Quasi National Park, where we hiked and swam and Jon left and I slept in the dark worried about bears, hiding my food in a tree which was promptly eaten by squirrels.

And then Tokyo again.

Clicks & Pops Removed!

2008-06-21T19:17:00.001+09:00

It Took a Lot of Work to be the Ass I am

2008-06-16T12:37:00.003+09:00

Sorry I've been away for a while. But much to explain this busyness. I started a band with my friends Leo, Andy, and Caitlin called Blazing Cranes. I was also oyster sick all last week from my own hand. I've gotten food poisoning 3 times in my life, and all from food Ive cooked myself. I was really angry that I got sick on one of my days off, especially as I had been planning to go to the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi, about an hour a way, to see a retrospective of the Turner Prize. So even though my throat still burned raw from stomach acid, I could barely saunter, and my belly was ready to toss anything coming its way, I was soon staring my bloodshot eyes at the inside of one of Damien Hirst's cows. And I've gotten addicted to the Wire.Anyway, on account of not having given you much in some time, here are the melodies that play when a train arrives or departs on the chuo line. I recommend the ones at Shinjuku station, especially number 8, one of the only tunes with a beat, and a progression that's hard to beat. Also the one at Toyoda is hard to beat.

Strike

2008-05-27T12:14:00.000+09:00

My poor father:

In high school I became agnostic, in university a vegetarian (piscebyterian), and now tomorrow I'm engaging in my first union strike. Its just a small thing, not about walking off the job. Instead I won't be attending a training where we teachers get paid half our usual wage, as a sort of symbolic thing. But this symbol is really making me feel something. Its kind've incredible.

Here is a new videO:

On pure momentum right now, I'll have another one done sometime next week or so, and then I'm going to have a filmmaking crisis, I can already feel it. "Boom and bust", that handsome Tyler says, that broad shouldered poet of weird country sky.

158.5 Hours in Zhong Guo Part 4/4: SIGHTS SEEING

2008-05-12T21:02:00.029+09:00

The first sight I really got to experience in any meaningful way was on the THIRD day, the Big Goose Pagoda in Xi'an, Ed and I free and easy on our speedy legs.

Xi'an was the first capital of united China (221 BCE), and the beginning of the Silk Road connecting China to Rome.

It was the capital till about the 10th century, so has a lot of interesting and famous Chinese firsts, like the Big Goose Pagoda, which was built to house Buddhist Sutras brought from India in the 7th century CE, and translated in the photo below

These are some images of statues around the pagoda, and near the temples surrounding it as well:

The next day we went for the Terracotta Warriors, 10 000 individualized soldier statues meant to protect the first Emperor Qin in the afterlife.

This woman was pretty badass, and could probably protect Qin all by herself.

There was an awesome documentary shown before we went to the sight, which was awesome because it was 300 and 60 degrees!

Okay so now I've seen Xi'an, I've climbed a mountain, I've lost the bank card for my Japanese bank account,* and, because of the lovely people I met on the last hard sleeper, I've slept about 3 hours in 24. Its 8am now, and what must I do back in Beijing? Forbidden City, Tianneman Square, AND the Great Wall all in one epic day.** So, first a check in to hostel and facebook to my dear Japanese friends John and Ai who sort out my bank account, a fine shower and an expensive coffee, and then Forbidden City.

Ever since hearing about a forbidden city as a young boy, I've wanted to go. Forbidden City was built in 1406 for the Ming Dynasty's Ruling Class, and was off limits, to varying degrees for 500 years (Anglo-Franco forces occupied it in 1860; the outer section was opened in 1912, and in 1924 finally the whole thing). Although wikipedia says that the Starbucks built in 2000 closed down, it has definitely re-opened. Anyway, the FC, as I affectionately call it, was really great.

Most of the buildings were actually just one huge room, with one or two purposes. Its really puzzling that the emperor would have one building just for revising his announcements, and
then another to make the announcements. Especially since the Forbidden City is quite big to get around.

With our limited time we only made it halfway, to this garden

with pretty modernist looking rock sculptures/statues. It was neat, but we really had to go.

A guard told me not to take this photo, so this one's for Tibet.

Across from the City, is Tianneman Square

which was filled with many many people not really using it as a square but just taking photos

and I was of course going camera frantic too and had to stop myself to actually appreciate what has gone on here

and also to haggle over the price of a little red book by Chairman Mao, and to be asked to have my picture taken by these 2
Okay, so now, rush rush rush, find a taxi, get on the subway, get on a bus for the Great Wall (started in the 6th century BCE with about 2.5 million dead in the end from it) and then fall asleep on the bus for an hour or so, miss the stop, arrive in some town an hour from the Great Wall at 4:15 (and the last bus back from the Great Wall is 6:30pm OMG), rush for a bus, angry and frustrated that we're going to miss it again. Then trying to justify missing it. Getting off the bus at 5:40 and the return bus is actually 6:2o. Seeing ticket gates boarded up. Running past them, running running running in circles and up stairs and down other stairs until there is a ticket agent and its open. And we have 30 minutes for the Great Wall of China, and every justification I had for missing it would have been a total lie because it was the best thing.

We panted up the stairs on mountain tired legs trying to cover as many of its 6 400 kilometres as we could. But it didnt take long for us to break down and just had to stop and look at it all.

*dont worry dad, everything worked out fine
**true fact: I slept a personal best 8 scattered hours out of 57 in the end, those first 24 Xi'an to Beijing, than big Beijing day and then just not wanting to sleep for fear of missing anything and having to leave to the airport by 5:30am. I was running on rapture and necessity.

158.5 Hours in Zhong Guo Part 3: CLIMBING A TALL MOUNTAIN

2008-05-11T23:48:00.020+09:00

Quite a popular thing to do in China, Lonely Planet says, is climbing mountains at night to arrive at the peak by sunrise. Based on my experience in China, this is a quite popular thing to do, especially among student couples on vacation.

Ed and I weren't originally planning to do this 7 hour trek to Hua Shan's eastern peak (a town some 3 hours from Xi'an by train and bumpy as all hell minibus

), at night but luckily some unfortunate circumstances forced it so. You see on the train I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to call our airline and re-confirm our flight, before 72 hours of our flight back to Tokyo. Remembering this on a shoddy crowded train to a mountain village some 90 hours before the flight in a region with almost impenetrable dialect is a scary proposition. After some long distance calling in the best restaurant in the world

which was paid by mass tip, we met Yens, possibly the nicest person in the world, who found us at her hotel trying to explain that we needed to use their phone and internet for drastic, urgent reasons. She helped us for 2.5 hours!, and we drank beer together for .5 hours (which she refused us paying for because she was a host (I can only hope she comes to Canada so I can pay off the psychic debt)).

So by this time it was 9pm, dark as all hades, and we struck off for the mountain, surrounded by a countless students and other cats, dressed for a rave in dayglo cat ears or bracelets or devil horn hair bands. We all bottlenecked at the ticket booth, where a man screamed and shouted through a megaphone at the budders and violent and surly, throwing them to the back of the line. Ed stood back while I dove in amongst all the clamorers at the booth, 15 minutes pressed against glass which I consider in the top 3 or 4 worst experiences of my life. (Advice for anyone going to China: bring old/current student cards. I forgot mine but everything would have been half price). So now the mountain. Despite all the people, this was far from safety precautioned walk, but incredibly dangerous and harrowing. First it was eerie, then it was bottlenecked and slow and why did I go on this climb,

then it was completely emptying because it was so dangerous, no time to think of anything but the next step. We'd move up these near verticle sets of narrow stairs in a big line...in the dark. All I could do was focus on every step and the sound of anyone falling, which would have severely injured/killed myself and about 20 others.

Then it was something else. On the first panoramic plateau by the north peak (about an hour from the east peak) I saw the stars that had been getting closer with every step. I saw the town lights below. I saw the dayglo and flashlights moving ever up from the sheer drop just left of my feet. I don't want to do anything but just skip on this for fear of ruining it.

Then it was a rest at the base camp of the North Peak, trying to find a spot amongst the sleepers and the weary.

It was 5am, and sunrise was 6.

We ate expensive apples and drank expensive water we bought at a rest spot just below the north peak, and hiked our way to the east and the sunrise.

After a lot of rest and eating and no talking, the day sun shone bright and we worked our way down, seeing all our fellow hikers as they were. Students,

some people in business coats and shoes (!), all dead tired. Also, coming up the path from the gondola to the north peak were the new hikers of the day, families and ice cream eaters and people wanting photos of Ed because of his Mao shirt. We took the gondola down,

stuck in a huge line with gates and all these strange tourist trappings that were a far cry from the mountain we climbed. It was a weird ending.

But at this point, thank God it was over. At the base, we had troubles getting to town, bought Hua Shan mountain gold medals (which impressed customs at the Tokyo airport) took a mini bus to Mengyuan,

ran like exhausted manaics for a terrible train ride to Xi'an (I had to lean on baggage for 3 hours with a man who hiked Hua Shan for 19 hours), hailed the motor-rickshaw that took many lives from us, arrived at the best hostel in the world, drank beer, showered, and then slept, about 2pm now till 10:30pm.

Next Post is the Conclusion.

158.5 Hours in Zhong Guo Part 2: IN SEARCH OF SUSTENANCE

2008-05-08T01:32:00.003+09:00

Every travel blog is so cliche. Tales of infectious excitement that attempt to inspire readers to also strike out into the world...c'mon. I'm happy so far to focus on transit and eating. Inspire this!

First to mind is what I've come to refer as the Great Fiasco of China, the first full day there where we missed everything. After Lonely Planet was simply wrong about how long it would take to get to Simatai, a beautiful, crumbling, and more isolated area of the Great Wall, 2 hours from Beijing and 2 hours from the Wall, we had to backtrack to return in time for our train to Luoyang. We were in a pretty desolate area,

which this photo does not much capture the spirit of. It was an area of 4 lane highways and hotels that all seemed closed. Pretty quiet and it was only 3:30pm. Some people were hungry, and we went into the only thing that seemed open, a hotel restaurant. The staff were sitting around killing time, and it was obvious (confirmed after many hand actions and guide book flipping) that they were closed till 5.

However, after a long time trying to figure out where to go next (and quite embarrassingly for us, a waitress busted out a cellphone and called her English speaking friend to help us), a manager came down and forced the restaurant open an hour and a half early, just for us. I was red-faced, but the others refused my suggestion that we don't do this to the staff... "If they didn't wanna be open for us, they wouldn't", an argument that won the day, despite ignoring the simple fact that the staff had no choice. Without much of a moral backbone (just a general quesy feeling near all the time) I ate anyway. Using the guidebook I tried to tell the waitress that the food was delicious, but I think I just insulted her somehow. To assuage my guilt I thought we could leave a massive tip. I gave our 50% tip or so to the helpful waitress who outright refused. Thinking that she wasn't allowed but would appreciate it nonetheless, I slipped it among the dishes. We were halfway across the parking lot when another waitress came running out, money in hand, leading to a communication tug of war until we just walked away, winning the game of who gives away the money.

That was the same day we tried to get to Tianneman Square, but arrived right around its closing time. I didnt really know public squares could close, but there we were. Here's a shot at Tianneman Square, with the flash exposing the huge particles of pollution we were swallowing every second.

On my last day in China, I did get to Tianneman Square, the Forbidden City, and The Great Wall, which I will get into in a later post. But here is a happy faced and filthy man on that very same epic and victorious day, showing all signs of eight days of hard travel. He's about to enjoy some Peking Duck in a damn fancy restaurant (which would prefer not to be called 'damn fancy').

And here is a photo of me, defeated by the heaping quantities of Peking Duck I ate:

Which, as a vegetarian (a piscebyterian really) might show I'm really none at all. However, I feel no vague quesy guilt about it at all. Because I know I'll never eat Peking Duck again or have any plans to eat any other fowl for that matter. It wasn't a gateway drug back into the realm of morally depraved flesh eating, but just a radical choice. I dated a woman once, a vegetarian, who told me one time when no one was around, she ate a whole pepperoni tube (?), and I always considered that one peak of freedom. Anyway, the duck and duck soup was amazing.

After that, we went for a Lonely Planet bar called "C'est What?" that we couldnt find (whether that was our fault or Lonely Planet's I cant say), but found this guard outside the Forbidden City

looking like all the guards I saw. Except this one below, a guard off duty, just steps away from the upright specimen above.

A couple asked him to take photos of them in front of the Forbidden City south gates, and he got right into it, even getting them to pose in goofy ways, she on his back etc etc. If you enlarge the image, you can see a big tooth grin on his face. This little anecdote may not seem like much, but it was really striking around the intimidating Forbidden City/Tianneman Square section at night, with big police vans, cameras and serious and perfectly pressed guards keeping it all empty and controlled.

II. Xi'an

Soon after these coconuts, Ed and I, slowly and surely

found our way to one of Xi'an's Muslim Quarters for a street table dinner that was cooked by these guys

and had some exquisite and painful spice that made me chug down 4 orange sodas until I felt sick (and the beginning of the 4th I knew it was a mistake). Sated, we wandered around, Ed buying some Mao t-shirts that were much loved by some of the people we met climbing Mount Hua Shan.

We left the busier market area for quieter neighbourhood streets, a Jane Jacob dream of shops and residences, many in the same room.

Everything was great, and even felt a lot like Toronto, until, a left from the child pooing at the sidewalk (didnt see any diapers anywhere, just slits in the seat of pants so kids can just go where need be), it became darker, quieter, and thus more scary. So we went back to that best hostel in the world, exhausted but not sleepy, and got some Tiger beers at its Terracotta themed bar, thinking of how to make conversation with the two beautiful women at the table beside us, but some men swooped in and took them away. A Chinese guy played Elliott Smith songs over a beatboxing young whitey with a ponytail...we were in a hostel alright. Soon we were accosted by some friendly Australian English teachers and their dates, Steve and Nick and Cindy and Michael and someone else. The teachers were really fun, but prone to bragging not only of their 'incredible' jobs and their 'incredible' apartments, but also the 'incredible sluts' of Xi'an. This may make them out to be grotesque, but some 20 minutes later Steve got a call from his girlfriend and had to leave pronto. I liked that he was trying to impress us but he actually has a girlfriend he cares enough about to leave straight away from a night out. The beatboxing whitey named Andrew was one of their friends and and came over to chat. I'm now seriously considering going to work in China for a month after I finish in Japan, so I asked Andrew if I could find another job outside of teaching if I wanted to work and live in China.
"You can do anything you want man".
Thanks for the help Andrew.

III. The Best Restaurant in the World

This is in the best restaurant in the world. Its in Mengyuan.

The End...Part 3 Later.

158.5 Hours in Zhong Guo (flat sound on Zhong, rising tone for Guo) Part 1: IN TRANSIT

2008-05-06T14:46:00.024+09:00

And I'm back from China. It was an immense trip, a massive trip, a tremendous trip and trying to put it down for you is daunting. So, White Stripes style, I'm just going to limit myself by dividing my transcriptions in into four broad categories, and see what rises to mind.

All in all, with all the inter-city trains and buses, Ed and I

spent 40 hours in transit. Which is not to include waiting around at trains stations and bus stations and bus stops, or any intra-city travelling like buses or taxis. Which leads me to the first great swoop of good fortune on the trip, Ed and I getting lost from the herd in Xi'an, a city 914 km south of Beijing.

We travelled with Maddie and Klara and met Maddie's brother Alexander in Beijing. The first full day there, on account of big group slowness, we actually accomplished nothing. No time for Great Big Wall, no time for Tianneman Square. I was one frustrated tourist. In Xi'an me and Ed jumped in one taxi and they for another, and luckily, oh so luckily our driver was lying when he said he knew where they hostel was.

With our giant packs Ed and I went in search, and after walking down the length of the street,

we found these children in a decaying courtyard

who explained that the hostel was closed.

Success! We checked into the best hostel in the world (free lockers, Terracotta Warrior Themed Bar, guitars and water and courtyard and birds and western toilets and free flip flops and free beers can you believe it), free of compromise and slow moving, and went to the Big Goose Pagoda, but more on that in a future, Sightseeing post.

The main radio pleasure of the taxi drivers in Xi'an, based on our limited sample, is choral classical music, which added a sense of the epic to a lot of my time in Xi'an.

We took hard seaters for the trains the whole trip,

rows of 2 or 3, often with sweaty cats trying to get edges of seats, or kneeling at our feet , warming our legs in the just bearable heat (that rhyming was all unintentional). People were everywhere, smoking by the toilets, lying on the floor, leaning against everything. Plus no toilet paper. It was near impossible for us to get any train tickets at all, me in a panic on our first night to get us to Xi'an in two days time, biking like the wind from the hostel to the Beijing Train Station some 4 blocks away.

It was a 4 day holiday in China centering around May Day, so Ed and I were often the only "old whiteys"* around the many Chinese tourists.

These hard seaters were terrible, especially when surrounded by old men who were quite unashamed to hork onto the ground at our feet and smack their lips for minutes after finishing their pastries. Old to middle aged men owned the trains, hanging around in the aisles in big gangs, talking loud, staring down old whiteys, and bumping past anyone in their way. They were the kids on the back of the bus. Happily, like smoking or horking, drinking is quite acceptable on the trains, which made those 12 hour overnighters much more bearable. In fact, we did meet some nice people on the trains, including this philosophy student who gave me an apple.

But no doubt, the best ride was Luoyang to Beijing, the night of May 3rd. Although there was only 9 seats in our row (3 vs 2, and 2 vs 2), we had, at the peak, 14 people around, and some curious onlookers enjoying our attempts to speak Mandarin and to shake off the Xi'an dialect we had spent learning the last 3 days. Our tickets were on opposite sides of the aisle, so with our common link we extended the party to both sides. Mostly students around with dapplings of old men, the one beside me never changing his expression from half lidded lucid eyes, and the old man in front of me with the most expressive smile because it would crackle open a thousand wrinkles on his wizened face. He woke me up at 6 am, still far from Beijing, either as a joke or to show me the sun rise. Also, around 3 when he saw me nodding off, he said, for all his buddies to hear, "cup of caffee" which apparently is the funniest thing in the world. Also in front of me was an engineer, and his wife, a pHD engineering candidate, who were great. To my right sharing my seat or standing up was Ping,

a music student who taught me how to make a paper boat, and told me many interesting stories. After a few hours, we all were very comfortable with each other, and even become quite intimate, an incredible thought considering we'll all never see each other again. As a teacher in Japan, I heard a lot about general Chinese dislike of Japan, and when I told Ping, quite truthfully, that I liked China more than Japan, she replied, "Ah, you are handsome and clever!" Which I didn't take too seriously, an instinct confirmed later when she asked how many people were in my family. "Oh, two sisters." "Ah, they are very pretty."

Sitting by Ed was probably the best couple in the world, a man working for the Environment Ministry in China who rubbed his girlfriend's feet, an architect student in Beijing. Despite his contribution to China's awful environmental policies, they were a lot of fun and the kind of couple that I find inspiring.

Finally, on one 5 hour bus trip, our driver honked his screaming horn loud and long as he passed every car on the road. After 2 hours of that madness, I grew comfortable with the rhythm and fell asleep, only to awake to noises of worry and trees directly out the front window. There I clenched my fists to face death in the certain tumble down a mountain side, but luckily it was only a truck carrying trees that we just avoided rear ending.

More soon.

*laowui - a term used by children for old whiteys like me and Ed..."lao + surname" is what you use for buddies who are older, "shao + surname" for buddies who are younger.

Ate Days

2008-04-27T11:27:00.006+09:00

Tomorrow I'm off to China for 8 days, and I will return bearing stories.

This is a video made a month ago at a protest outside the Chinese embassy in Tokyo:

Coolie at the Station

2008-04-15T13:41:00.001+09:00

Hanami Video!

Host with tha Most

2008-04-10T13:26:00.002+09:00

What if I had a tv show?

I wrote a live review/interview for Soundproof Magazine in Toronto about this band, and while I was at it, I decided to make up a tv programme with the footage I had from this concert. I'm embarrassed by the way I come off, but not embarrassed enough not to show you.

Its rainy day and a train station caught fire and all the trains are down. Rather than get the day off, I just have to work later. AWESOME!

sakura sakura sakura sakura sakura sakura sakura

2008-03-31T11:09:00.028+09:00

rain & wind beat hard to swell
teeming sticky life
streets & sidewalks are stunning

(how many reverse haikus are written this time of year?)

Hanami is roughly Japanese for "drinking in the park when the cherry blossoms are out"

Thursday me and Andy went to Koganei Park not half hour on our dogs. In about 1 minute of sitting down, we were joined by a class of chemistry grad students and their professor, who had disgusting lines of spit along the side of his mouth. We played frisbee and drank and were offered 'Japanese snatch' by Takuma, who meant 'snacks', but nonetheless was very eager for me and Andy to concur with him on the beauty and superiority of Japanese women. We promised we would be friends forever. Every day was very similar to that first one, as everywhere we went we made friends forever in about 5 minutes flat. Although I'm sure to never see any of these people again, I'm not going to forget them either.

On Friday Andy, Shinei, Caitlin, Claire and I went to Inokishira Park

Saturday night me and Andy, Catherine, Jamie, Carson, and Loren went to Ueno, the biggest hanami spot in Tokyo. Asking my students if its a good place to go, I got a lot of visceral answers of praise or revulsion.

Finally, on Sunday I joined a larger group in tatters after I finished work on Sunday....Ed, Sarah, Derek, Andy, Nick, Lori and a few forgotten names were the only ones left in the rain and mud.

Embed!

2008-03-25T12:22:00.005+09:00

How can I explain? My life is a fine one but there's nothing particularly interesting that I'm doing for the time being. I go for coffee everyday at this cafe that can only fit 3 people, where I chat with the staff and they sneak me sweets I dont want but am too touched not to eat. I teach English conversation 5 days a week: "gonna" "at-ome". There are a few students who I treasure dearly for making the days bearable, and others I desperately maneouver with other teachers never to see again. One student who started out as the latter and became the former is Yu, born in Germany, rich and not working, who swears a lot, and talks about drugs, and took a photo of me for his girlfriend so she wouldnt be jealous that he's spending 40 minutes in a room with a female. He's flighty and ridiculous and misogynistic. He's mentioned a few times that we should hang out outside of school, and I've just brushed this off politely each time, laughing about him with the other teacher but I realised 'no I do want to hang out with him just once. I want to see into his strange world...if he buys me drinks.' And the lessons are always interesting.

My kids classes finished on Saturday, which stabs me a bit right there you know? The kids I had were really fantastic even when they were absolutely mental...this one kid Souichi would cry everytime he won a game or was made the centre of attention. One time we played "London Bridge" and when the bridge fell on him he burst into tears and started punching his mom. In my experience, kids get away with a lot of stuff. In another class, Takuma (who for my first 3 weeks I called Takafuma), two years old, would run around stacking cushions and leaping on them, jumping on a table and running around on it, playing with the tape deck, leaving the class room, all with a wonderful sense of joy that nonetheless aggravates a teacher trying to control a class. The whole time his ma just would watch him and sometimes call out "Taku Taku" and that's it.

I keep losing and gaining things:
LOST (in the last month)
-5000YEN
-CD player
-Murakami's "Wind Up Bird Chronicle"
-9 fine roomates
-Antonio Negri
-kids classes

GAINED
-2 futons
-Augusten Burroughs book
-Murakami's "Wind Up Bird Chronicle"
-3 fine roomates
-a quarter bottle of suntory whiskey
-new kids classes (next week)

As for the video, when I finished and was looking up how to spell Philip Glass for its title, I saw that he did the soundtrack for Koyaanisqatsi, that '80s movie with people moving around really fast in cities, and yeah realised that that's where I got the idea for the movie...I was always vaguely aware that I was doing a Koyaanisqatsi thing, but I never realised I was doing a total rip off of it. If I twist my brain in the right way, that actually further emphasises what I was trying to make fun of.

How to buy Chinese train tickets from Japan?

2008-03-20T21:04:00.008+09:00

While waiting in line at a photo shop, I saw a stack of albums with the words "It's not bad to retrace the past" emblazoned on their covers.

Pagans! Worshipping the Sun!

2008-03-20T20:39:00.006+09:00

-Spring has come, and Tokyo is in the finest form that I've yet seen it...people are schlepping around outside, the plum blossoms have fallen and cleared the ground for the cherry blossoms.
-Today was a holiday, so I stayed out all night and went at 4am to a club, which was cool to be in for about 6 minutes.
-The statue of liberty is a miniature in Odaiba, a corporate island near Tokyo. Another place its strange to find me at.
-I'm not at all comfortable yet with having a decent amount of money in my pocket.
-Inspite growing up management's son I joined the teacher's union and paid my dues.
-I'm going to China next month: Beijing, Great Wall, Xian, Hua Shan, Yuncheng, Xian, Beijing.

And why

2008-03-14T23:15:00.003+09:00

have I been stealing Bill Cosby's dance moves? Ah so I could get next to Mrs. Huxtable.

a three hour tour/kama kama kama kama kamakuuura

2008-03-01T18:46:00.012+09:00

On Monday at noon my cousin (say it with a French accent) Michael & his girlfriend Allison and I met in Shinjuku for the beginning of our 3 hour tour to Kamakura, described in the books as a little Kyoto, and a political centre in the 12th century, until the 13th century, a short time after the 3rd Shogun was murdered at the base of the 1000 year old tree which can be seen in the 2nd last photo. Because it used to be a centre of power, there are a lot of old temples and statues etc etc etc, like this famous giant golden Buddha that you can even go inside, apparently.

But our day started with us and Michael & Allison's friend from Toronto, Inderpal waiting for Ken, Steve, and Aoi from their hostel, who took some time getting to a different exit that we had to track down in massive Shinjuku station, taking a ridiculous long time at it. THEN THEN THEN, we had to still leave, 1:07 by this time, and of course the woman behind the counter told us the wrong train line to take, so our train started to backtrack after 10 stops. At the next station, the man behind the counter refused to tell us how to get there because he worked for a different train company than the one we were supposed to be on, so we had to travel to a train station with a JR company line. The hilarious thing was that this was all hilarious to our tired, and sometimes hungover brains and our ebbing hungry tummies. Short long story, we got to Kamakura by 3:30pm, hungry so we searched for dinner. All the sites close by 4:30, except one which we took off to after stuffing our bellies. At the shrine, all Tokyo stress was gone before I even knew I really had it, getting something I didn't even know I needed in return. Afterwards we went to a tea house, moving their tables around to fit our giant party, taking the warmers off the pots because we thought we were supposed to, and generally acting like oblivious monkeys (its kinda easy to feel that way sometimes around here). Here is a video of Michael & Allison acting like monkeys. Monday was awesome even as it was total gong show (slang from my roommate Brock in the filthy filthy house I lived in Waterloo if anyone remembers, with the bathroom that was the size of a closet and where shower/toilet water poured into my room from a rusted pipe and where Brock fell down the stairs in a dead drunk and (thank god for) Dana & I took him to a hospital but he refused to stay there and finally we gave up on him as he walked back to our house at 5am with a bleeding head...Dana if you're out there, I'd like to know what you're doing!)

Nevr is Nevr is Nevr

2008-02-21T16:18:00.002+09:00

should be the last time although who knows

Never is Never

2008-02-21T00:53:00.002+09:00

I fixed it again

You, a big fan of sweeeeeeets

2008-02-19T01:11:00.003+09:00

Hey everyone, I went with a student/friend of mine to Yokohama to do Japanese Tea Ceremony, which is a traditional form thats been ever refined since about the 15th century. I knew it had a lot of history and decorum, so it was a bit surprising to see that all the old women (everyone was over 50 for certain except me and my friend Miyu) were laughing and talking a lot during the ceremony, while following the rituals perfectly (or near perfect - it was more of a Tea Ceremony practice). I felt like those '70s "oriental" BBC documentaries where the journalist is willing to get right involved in the traditional practices they are showing the viewer back home, but never get out of their suit and tie. I was really impressed by the women who sat on their folded feet while kneeling (i hope you can imagine this and try it at home), because after about 10 minutes it was wickedly painful. They didnt expect me to sit it out, and even tried to bring me a chair, but I refused with a polite set of nods and "daijoboos" ('i'm fine'). Anyway, it was great to see this rare sight, but a bit strange when Miyu, who I had been joking around on a bus (first time on a Tokyo city bus!) only 15 minutes before was serving me a small sweet dish in a complete prostration (to which I responded), and who is pretty awkward on the street but moved with poise and smoothness in the tea room.

Another video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcDRXqbIP4k

This one is definitely influenced by the final Sopranos episode, and you know what? I'm gonna fix it to make that more obvious! But I probably wont put the final addition on youtube, so enjoy the original in all its flaws.

Aw forget it I uploaded it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERugluIX9-E

seeing the Taj Mahal was the worst experience of my life

2008-02-12T01:14:00.001+09:00

So as you can see in these photos I am posing terribly in, that I saw not just Alex "Fandango" Dimita, but also was pleasantly surprised by Gilad "Laddy Lad" Cohen, outside Shibuya station right across from the "Free Hugs" people with questionable motives. Alex told a great story about being in LA: She just wanted to see a celebrity, any celebrity while in LA just for the sake of it. So drunk in arm and arm with her cousin on her last night there, she of course sees George Strombolopolos on the street, a guy anyone my age had to grow up with, who shops at the Black Market, who I asked at a White Stripes show when I was 17 why edge 102 sucked, who is/was dating a friend of mine, who is so familiar Alex just throws up her hands and disappointedly called "George" because she's known him forever. Usually I find it really annoying if people call celebrities by first names like they're chums, but I think it worked in this case. Anyway it was incredible/sustaining to see them both, plus I met their Tokyo friends and I now have people to go with to this rumoured izikaya (a sit down bar where you get your own room and low table and usually pay a set price for all you can drink) that has a penguin walking around? A student told me, and I guess I'll know I;m a good teacher if this place actually exists and I didnt hear hauntingly incorrect.

for people waiting a facebook/email/letter response, I'm working through them.
Okay time for bed. Here is a link to the Japan Indy Media site which gives more of an explanation of the video I made before you see it.

And here is the debut of "Musashi Koganei: As We Live & Breathe" which I've been working on for a long time, and was happy as a clam to have finished tonight.

Silence is Golden

2008-02-07T00:15:00.001+09:00

The last few weeks have been hectic, which you might have been able to deduce from the lack of anything here. Its late, and I need to go to bed, but I finally finished and uploaded a video about Tokyo's version of the "Global Day of Action" on January 26th.

Alex Dimita (none other!) who I met on the 3rd day of university while waiting in line is in Tokyo. We're gonna hang out tomorrow, which is also the day of my early morning class at universal music. The morning is crammed to the gills on the train. True to the urban legends, it really does happen, but only at peak (5-10am, 5-8pm, 11-1am) hours. The other day I decided to wait and not get on the train about to pull away so I could be first in line and get a seat for the next one, but a lot of people didnt share my idea. They clown car-ed it with these epic backwards bodychecks, one after another; my intuitive reasoning kept telling me each one would be the last, but there is no last until half a leg and a briefcase is sticking out the doors. Tomorrow Im gonna teach 'toss your salad' 'tromboning' and 'snowballing' with alternative definitions...it may sound crass and maybe even funny, but its just sad - anything to get through another day.

Here's a picture with snow which is a rare sight in these parts.

And here's the video:

I made it for Japan Indy Media but found it easier to put it on YouTube.

---oyasumi

No War No Nukes

2008-01-17T23:22:00.000+09:00

Edward Said, Throw Up Your Hands & Get Down

2008-01-11T01:06:00.001+09:00

I dont know if this happens to you, but some music I think fits into a situation, and I'll be, y'know, grooving with my headphones on, you know what I'm talking about, when I will run right into an old woman, (it is very crowded here and old women are very tiny), and then I am no longer cool, and no longer is everything cool, and the music is no longer in accord with everything around me. Or other times, the music I'm listening to is so discongruous with everything around me that I become joyously antagonistic to my surroundings, like when I'm listening to the Deadly Snakes or Jon Rae & the River or something. If I knock into an old woman, well, hey, what can I say? But I always think it's really neat if I find music that fits in so well, nothing can happen to make it not fit. Its almost like I'm not there. And its neat that the music is totally different from place to place. I always get that in Tokyo when I'm listening to OK Computer, Brian Eno's “Another Day on Earth” and “Einstein on the Beach” by Phillip Glass (I read a thing on Radiohead where Thom Yorke said they named it Ok Computer because they were in Tokyo in a department store and the computer system shut down, and when it came back up one of the workers started saying, “Ok computer!” and then got all the customers in the store to chant it).

Also, if you were confused, my article for Japan Indy Media was under a different name. My editor told me to protect my neck

Student for Life, Winter in the Jane Bond

2008-01-08T02:45:00.001+09:00

Living in a guest house
riding a bike
drinking the cheapest organic wine
taking a break from writing at a quiet neighbourhood bar.

The photo was from tonight and is an update of my looks for anyone who hasnt seen me in a while. It's also a testament to the uniting probabilities of alcohol. Also, who knew the best bar in Tokyo would end up being in the very town I live?

I wrote a new article for Japan Indy Media.

What are other people doing?

2008-01-06T19:13:00.001+09:00

Yann Martel has started sending our Prime Minister a book every Monday.

2000 Words

2008-01-04T17:47:00.001+09:00

Hot means Hot

2007-12-30T16:36:00.000+09:00

I went to a village called Nazawa Onsen last week to enjoy its many free hot springs. Watching the old villagers "eeee"ing and "oooo"ing the whole time, I realised that no one ever gets used to the searing heat no matter how many times you go in, or how long you keep your legs in hoping to become acclimated.

It was great to get out into the country, but seeing all the neon and thatched roof haircuts as I rounded the bend back into Tokyo, it was also great to be home.

Do they Know it's Christmastime at all?

2007-12-28T13:21:00.000+09:00

On Christmas eve I decided to go to the Tsukiji fish market, the biggest wholesale fish market in the world, but to catch it (i am hilarious) at it's most swinging best is to get there at 5am or just after. The trains don't start till 5:07, finishing at 12:30am, so its necessary to stay up all night unless you're a complete masochist. I talked to Andy, who is another teacher from Glasgow and who's pretty funny, and he wanted to come along. I also called my friend Miki who is a staff member at a school I teach, and her husband Jared from Guelph and they were down. So Andy and I met Miki in Shinjuku station at 12:30, and we caught the last train to Roppongi Hills, a big club and bar district where foreigners are hired to stand outside strip clubs and entice you to come in, and where Jared was soon getting off work at a French restaurant. We were already tired so the 3 of us went to a really swanky cafe that we found out served 600 Yen coffees and was playing “Suffragette City”. I didnt want to make Miki feel uncomfortable because even though I was too tired and cold to leave, I know she makes less than half what I do, and she's been temping at a grocery store over the holidays till school starts. So we left and found a really shitty chain-coffee shop called Almond that was playing, “All I Want for Christmas is You”, and the coffees were 630Y! But we stayed until Jared showed up with Julian, his sous-chef boss from Paris, who was kind've a dick but likable too. Jared said they hang out just to spite each other. He took us to a Prince Arthur in Toronto like bar, with staff in Christmas outfits everywhere. It was really uncomfortable at first because I usually hate those places, but Andy and I started drinking and then started dancing, and he dances like me which means he gives a shit about not giving a shit, and it reminded me about Allison and Carla and Me and Jeff dancing after the Jamie Lidell concert. My goal was to get us to dance with the 45 year old Phillipino woman with the short haircut and practical warm white sweater and golden wrist bands who was grinding with her daughter and all sorts of other dirty dancing with her, and it was obvious that her and her daughter came to Japan for the daughter's eighteenth birthday, a trip for the ladies, no dads sorry, and her daughter wanted to go clubbing and was like, “aw ma, you can't come with me”, and her mother was like, “listen, no daughter of mine is going out in the big city alone. You don't know what those Roppongi dancers are like at all.” “But you'll embarrass me”. “No, I'll show you the time of your life and make sure those guys treat you right”. The argument was settled. And sure enough some boy band Tokyo drifter started on the mom in earnest. She was getting more action than the daughter. I managed to get her to come dance with our group for about 10 seconds. So against all odds, Christmas was awesome so far. Eventually we went to a quieter warm bar with about an hour till we could get to the train. Miki was tired and seemed to be regretting the adventure. Andy was starting to get obnoxious with his constant loudmouth criticisms. But it was a nice time of the night. We went out in to the cold morning and hopped on a train. The market was really intense. Its just such huge business, giant tunas, people driving through at top speeds on scooters and forklifts, old women who look like fish setting up their stalls, old fish dealers on cell phones making deals left and right, coffees everywhere. It would have been impossible without Jared as a guide. Andy found a dirty santa hat, and a photographer took a rapid series of photos of him at an auction that we had to sneak in a bit. He will be on a gallery wall soon. The market is such a great contrast to see against rapid Tokyo, which can seem very streamlined and advanced and hyper-convenient when you remember to compare it to home. Its neat to recognize Tsukiji as a huge business, thousands of dollars on one tuna, but its messy and dirty, and people have to get up at 3am and have to know about pulleys and sales and how to make 30 pounds look like 40 pounds, and cigarettes out of every mouth and blood on shoes, and it supports the whole hungry city on its wet backs.
So we went to a fresh fish restaurant, it must be 7 now, and fresh raw fish is really great; I hadnt realised it would make so much of a difference. Miki was cranky and I think for her this part was the end of a movie. She looked at Andy and asked him, “Why did you come to Japan?” in that suspicious way that Japanese people can ask a foreigner, an alien, without ever being satisfied of the answer. I respected Andy for refusing to squirm and saying, “I dont really feel comfortable answering that”, and then she asked both of us, “Why are teachers lazier than staff?”, and she obviously always resents teachers for making more than her and working less, staff working 9 hour days and then clocking out and working more because ECC cant know they're working overtime. And teachers are mostly here to have fun and travel not to make a living. So it was really uncomfortable. Before we left I found out from these New Yorkers at the table across from us that Oscar Peterson died. In the Christmas sun, Andy and I were delirious and kept this running joke that got perpetually funnier. Something along the lines of how we could be giant dicks back home: “You call that a courteous construction worker? You've obviously never been to Tokyo”. Apparently there was a guy in Andy's teacher training group who identified himself as an “international traveller” and when asked where he still has to go said, “well, i havent seen all of Africa”. I fell asleep on the woman next to me on the train back to Big World 21. I slept till 1:30 when Jill called me on the skype and we opened our presents to each other over web cams, which was really great. I called my parents until my calling card died, and it was hard to stay in check, but dad did it for me by making me laugh by asking, as he does every time I talk to him, whether I am eating well.

Then, cherry on the fucking cake, Clinton Hupple from Hockley Valley, Ontario calls me as he is in Tokyo, and I went out to meet him and his girlfriend Laura in Shinjuku station at nine. Which is a great meeting spot I picked, and so we looked for each other for an hour in the biggest station in Tokyo. My friend Brent was there with his roommate J, and because they were with me looking I bought them ice cream as we had not heard from Clint for 25 minutes (he had to call on a payphone), and figured he had given up. But he called and we found them and they hadnt finished their ice creams so we looked like pretty bad. We met with Brent's girlfriend Aya at a bar that makes foreigners sit downstairs because one of my bosses made a wreck of the place a few years ago. Drinks were 198Y! It was great to hang out with Clint and Laura and really everyone. So I stayed longer than I should have and I had to run to catch my last train at 12:30. I got home at 1:15 and ran into a nice man from my building who on the usual winding path home told me that it has been here long before Tokyo was known as Edo, which in the stars and my buzz put a nice touch on Christmas. I then woke up at 5 to go help the filmmaker.

the sun comes up like missiles

2007-12-23T21:24:00.000+09:00

I walked right in front of a 50 year old Japanese Andrew Wilson two days ago.

Free Hustling

2007-12-21T00:51:00.000+09:00

I'm glad I took the bottom one in black and white so I would notice the form more; the city does look intense like that. These were taken in a place called Nishi-Shinjuku, which is one of the high rise downtowns in Tokyo. I also edited the shit out of my Japan Indy Media article I linked to the other day, so here it is, again:

http://japan.indymedia.org/newswire/display/4039/index.php

G8 protest in Hokkaido next year. Y'all coming?

Ganja journalism

2007-12-18T21:10:00.000+09:00

Here's a new article up on the Japan Indy Media site:

http://japan.indymedia.org/newswire/display/4039/index.php

I didnt want to write just a news piece and I didnt just want to write an opinion. I wanted to write fast and lazy.

I think I have a cool picture from today to post up next time. But I'm cooked from a stupid long day of running around with a camera bag starting at 6am.

Best Boy

2007-12-17T19:51:00.000+09:00

I wish I could describe to you the beautiful beautiful sunset I saw from the top of the Texas Instruments building today in the countryside outside Tokyo, a beautiful 100 foot Buddha statue in dark blue silhouetted in the distance against beautiful myriad pinks and oranges against a pale blue sky, beside a most beautiful lake, wrapped in a beautiful haze. But I forgot to bring my camera, so the little time I had I stared as fast as I could.

I was there because I've started to do volunteering with a filmmaker named Michael Goldberg, who has a quiet laugh and tells bad jokes. He's been in Japan for about 37 years, making documentaries and news segments and corporate videos. We drove out to the countryside today to film the New Year's greetings by the heads of Texas Instruments-Japan. Its really great for me though because I learned alot today and I'm sure I'll learn a lot tomorrow. Michael also told me a story about hitchhiking to Mexico City with a girlfriend in the late sixties and how they got arrested in Texas because she lost her passport in the Pacific. I suddenly woke up from the old tired man I didnt even know I was. I guess I had forgot that all my scrounging was for a reason.

Also, while cutting my hair over the sink tonight, I realised how I act like a homeless man who has suddenly gotten himself in a lucky situation with a shelter and food, even though I've been in this situation for 23 years. But its for a reason. plus cutting my hair is fun. I never know what I'm gonna get.

The Smokestacks

2007-12-15T17:48:00.000+09:00

Just so I wont forget when i get home:

"Lunatic Fringe"
"New Orleans is Sinking"
"Record Body Count"
"Little Instruments"

I also saw a woman wearing a shirt that said, "Cat Fight Night Club: No Stale, No Draw". I'm getting closer!

Big Band Christmas

2007-12-11T22:07:00.000+09:00

Living through three recipes

2007-12-07T00:07:00.001+09:00

I went to the Mori Art Museum in Ropppongi Hills, and it was incredible. I have never kept finding so much interesting art around every bleeding corner. There was one guy named Nakanishi Nobuhiro who gave the best representation of time I can imagine existing. I will not describe it. You'll just have to come over here and see it. There's a carpet floor just waiting for you and my ubiqitous curry rice dishes to shove down your gullet. The photo above is from the panoramic view of Tokyo you get at the museum. That was probably the best part.

Down here is a link to my new article for Japan's Indy Media. High five to Steve and Alex, Jacob, and Dirty for his 3 days of Greenpeace canvassing.
http://japan.indymedia.org/newswire/index.php

I also start an inhouse class for Universal Music....apparently I get free cds. Guess what you're getting for your birthday? Also tonight was probably my best shift yet. I convinced an Engineer and a Sales Rep in my one class to clap when they were finally able to pronounce "fluently", and they spontaneously started us going louder and faster till we all started laughing like little kids. And they had to start a sentence with "How about..." and then finish with their own ideas and the Engineer looked right at the Sales Rep and said, "How about going to dinner with me?"

Everywhere I go I see Yoko Ono

2007-12-03T19:32:00.001+09:00

About 50/50 I saw Yoko Ono today.

Tomorrow I'm going to the Mori Art Gallery with a staff member named Chelsea from one of my schools, and her husband Jared who I havent met but she is sure we will get along fantastically because we both like the Cornerstone in Guelph. As for Chelsea, she likes me because I apparently "dont care about fashion", which I guess is refreshing in a town where every other person is dressed to the nines. I like Chelsea for her refreshing candor!

Last night I went to a party and met the Moist Towellettes, a band made of 2 Canadian guys and 2 Japanese women who had met in Toronto a few years ago. For my joy and sadness, they called out the streets they lived on and places they drank. "Dufferin Street!"

That said, I'm not as nostalgic for the streets and rivers I love back home as some people here, I guess because I know I'll be back someday and it will all be very real to me again. What is terribly missed is the food i cannot properly get here, pizza, and cheese, and hummus, and, y'know, all the people I cant get here, like YOU for instance. But I do have Yoko Ono, maybe.

Climb Mount Takao with your Family and Friends

2007-12-01T20:26:00.000+09:00

Ma mere a pense-moi cool.

Let's Eat this McDonald's in the Park & Then Leave it There

2007-11-23T13:52:00.001+09:00

Hi everyone, just wanted to leave a note that I have an article up on IndyMedia Japan (http://japan.indymedia.org/newswire/index.php), and I guess I'll be writing for them for a while. It's a generally very pro Buy Nothing Day article, and if I had more time I would have liked to balance it out more, and have more facts & figures. Personally I think Buy Nothing Day's effectiveness is mainly for people who hear about it for the first time. Now that I've had the chance to know about Buy Nothing Day from the Laurier campus and reflect on what it's telling me, I dont really feel I need to participate in buying nothing on November 24th (November 23rd back home), but would rather participate in helping the causes with their more concrete efforts.

So, Tokyo is really clean. Rarely any litter, and what makes this very impressive is that there are rarely any rubbish & recycling bins kicking around anywhere. Eating in public is anathema, and the times I have done so when in a rush I found myself carrying banana peels around for half an hour. If they took out the garbage cans back home wouldn't there be more garbage? My house mate Klara told me that they tried to do this in Auckland, New Zealand's public parks, and as she said, "You'd just find a lot of trash in the bushes. If it's a choice between pride & convenience...".

Of course litter has upsides, like for a 6 or 7 year old going to his first Maple Leaf's game with my dad, and finding X-Men #1 all ripped up & dirty on the floor of Union Station. A big X-Men fan, I was really excited and sat down & started reading it and got myself filthy, and was furious when dad pulled me away. He just didnt understand X-Men at all.

Also, if anyone wants to know the names of the songs I linked, just send me a note...I'm a bit paranoid.

Buy Nothing Day

2007-11-20T14:43:00.000+09:00

I am trying to keep my 10 000¥ bills in my bank account, and so, without much to do, the posts continue. I just wanted to add onto to something I wrote a few days ago about Hirofumi accepting the darkness in his lunchroom. I forgot to make a point that I first heard in a speech by Paul Watson (of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society), which is that humans learn to adapt to diminishing returns & conditions, and this ability also means that we come to accept unjust or destructive conditions. He made a good point with a trite example like bottled water, which 50 years would have seemed outrageous to almost anyone, and is an industry that is supported by the perception that our reserves of tap water are polluted and unhealthy, which is something that a few hundred years ago would have been even more outrageous.

G_D

2007-11-19T13:55:00.000+09:00

About 4 years ago I read The Brothers Karamazov mostly while sitting in a front cab between my dad & my boss to and from the rich man's property we worked on, struggling to grasp the themes hidden beneath the trying epic speeches of all the characters in the heat of the summer, the smudged dirt on the pages, and my dad and my boss talking over me about quality chainsaws at discount prices. But I finished the book and always really liked but was never clear about the ending where, after really explicitly and logically dismantling established morality, he ends his book with this hazy ambigious morality (and maybe that;s because The Brothers Karmazov was only part 1 of a larger work called The Life of the Great Sinner that would have made War & Peace look like the Baghavad Gita, had Dostoevsky's not died before writing it) where Alyosha tells these children to love each other. And its simple and not clear at all what it means, but at times like today when I went jogging, and these 6 year olds in their sailor school uniforms start racing me while they're laughing like crazy, I know exactly what he was talking about.

Also, because of all these Brits I know, I've found out about a lot of good British entertainment, like Louis Thereux. He's doing exactly what I would love to do: travelling the world, immersing himself into some very strange subcultures, and wearing nice shirts. I think his show is excellent.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=iucZQj5C1z4

And finally, a little song to go running to

http://www.zshare.net/download/500463875efcce/

Rock & Roll

2007-11-18T23:48:00.000+09:00

Every class I teach ends with a free conversation and a list of conversation starters. Today's question about, "Who would you want to interview?", led to talk about Al Gore and climate change. When I asked Hirofumi what his company has done to reduce C02, he told me they turn out the lights during lunch break, so he eats in the dark for an hour during his usual 13 hour office shift. "It was dark but now I am used to it".

I also went see rock & roll! Tonight! There was a 7 piece band that blew a tough sax, and encouraged us all to "Dance, to the dance, dance, dance dance". Also garage rockers with girls that loved their every move, a dual gender bathroom with "Make Love" on the wall, and feedback motherfuckers that sang opera.

It was fun!

Warm Sake for Someone With Nothing to Think About

2007-11-17T00:35:00.000+09:00

I went downstairs to brush my teeth, and there was an impromptu James Brown dance party shakin' in the lounge. I finally realized that I've been stealing all of Bill Cosby's moves for years.

My Sunday's on your Monday (Tuesday)

2007-11-13T21:11:00.002+09:00

So today I went to Ueno Park, which I couldnt help compare to Central Park, a giant swath of trees and baseball diamond and lake and museums right in the mix of the city. I was agitated the whole subway ride there because I had gotten up so late and so was not making the most of my day off. But once I arrived, I quickly joined into the care free wandering air of the place, and wandered as I do, finding shrines and ducks and museums with Egyptian statues 3500 years old & Japanese swords from the 6th century CE. The mood of the park was striking, as more often than not, Tokyo can be stressful just looking at it and all the people working. The speed that this guy stacked the coke machine in my building was outrageous, as was the mailman who knocked on my door at 8am last Friday, and when I answered, literally pushed the letter into my instinctively shielding arms and ran away (and literally shit his pants). So the park (koen) was really awesome, and enhanced by the very simple & important fact that I was paid yesterday, which means that I can relax a bit about money, loosen the belt, and join spontaneous karoke nights instead of sitting at home with tea. I even bought slippers today. So that was today, but how is everything lately, you mean to ask? Next time I will have a funny story or something HONEST. I worked this week and, while stressing out quite often, achieved a trance-like state during my last shift, and all the (realized) unneeded stress completely melted away. Yesterday some New Zealanders & I played 'Guess the plot of this Korean Soap Opera', and Sunday I went to a quiz night for Oxfam in Brooklyn (Shimakitazawa) with some people from work which was great. And I learned that in Canada anal sex between consenting adults is legal only with 2 people present, and in Japan, anal sex is not considered adultery. But I forgot everything I learned in the museum today.

Love,
Daniel

A Man named Su

2007-11-06T23:50:00.000+09:00

Have you guys heard of an artist named Umi? Well some of you have been asking about Big World 21, my current address, and so I thought I would share with you some of Umi's finest work, which adorns nearly every available cm of my building. On the first two floors Umi sticks to social themes like "War" or simple interactions like a man with his meal or a woman and a deer. But if you creep up to the 3rd floor, Umi's more radical and spiritual themes are allowed to emerge, culminating in a vision of primitive & compassionate freedom and fully formed fertility. Also on the 3rd floor is Su, a student from S. Korea who has a guitar (oh it is so sweet to play again) and next year will be lockstep in South Korea's 2 year mandatory military service for males. "Terrible!" he tells me. He's enjoying Japan while he can, studying Japanese this year, and after military service he will try to get into a music program here. He also told me that N. Korea has mandatory 8 years military service. These Koreans need Umi more than we comfortable ones can imagine.

15 is the new 12

2007-11-05T23:08:00.001+09:00

12 & a half million. Sorry, i got all downtown swagger there.

Heritage Minute

2007-11-05T23:01:00.001+09:00

Today was a day off so I traveled to Shimokitazawa which is a like Brooklyn, and then to Shibuya which was like Times Square, except they were in a city of 15 and a half million people. And I know this has been said, maybe more than once, but advanced industrial cities really are very similar and comfortable, making it hard to find difference, like where they film Cat Fight.

Here's another song

Put your tongue between yer teeth to a make a th sound

2007-11-04T20:19:00.000+09:00

Apartments like White Elephants

2007-11-03T23:06:00.001+09:00

Hey everyone I dont have much to post today because the last bit of my teacher's training has been really busy (tiring and all consuming and boring), so here is a photo where I'm living, and here are some links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPZAasCYmWY

this is the beginning of the movie Gummo that I just finished an hour ago. Its "good"?

Here is a link to an article about race & class in music that i thought "interesting":

http://slate.com/id/2176187/

And finally, a clip of Bjork & PJ Harvey doing "Satisfaction":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV4t1rZEYnA

I know I know I know, all this means tht I have traveled 100000000 kilometres to spend a lot of time not going out, BUT, with training finished yesterday, every new teacher and our suddenly inappropriate trainers went out in hyper glowing Shinjuku (about 3 people pointed out to me where they filmed the karaoke scene from Lost in Translation as we walked past) for a wild time. Brent didnt hook up with Emily, one of the trainers shoved a teacher around, I sang 'Space Oddity' and ate octopus, and laughter spilled from us all.

Have a joyful Culture Day everyone.

Downtown Swagger

2007-10-27T16:57:00.000+09:00

The typhoons are upon us here in Tokyo, and I should stay in with some tea. But I'm going to a party in Koenji, which apparently is a happening area in a way I would like. This hasn't been Montreal and I haven't instantly found 5 people I want to see everyday for 16 hours a day, and in fact there is even a David Brent training with me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye1C8vMqbHA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHaJO9HEp48

But I gotta muck it up ya know?

Salaryman

2007-10-24T00:18:00.001+09:00

We had a long break during training today so me and this other trainee Eamonn went around one of the many business districts of Tokyo today trying not to buy 300YEN coffees (we failed). Here is a photo of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. I also asked Eamonn to go as close as he would to this giant weird crow.

Also another song

Like Scarlett Johanssen

2007-10-21T16:31:00.001+09:00

Japan has been a heavy gale through my bank account. They even have a word for it.
But when I realised that this weekend gave me more time off than I would see till Christmas, I popped onto (meaning spent an hour on the phone in broken Japanese trying to buy a ticket) the bullet train to Kyoto. After an unnervingly quick 2 hours, I arrived in the Kyoto rain at night fall. I weaved through the shady part of town and found my hostel tucked away in some dark narrow street. It was warm and friendly with free (instant) coffee, and after drying off I grabbed one of their umbrellas waiting for me and headed out to the East Kyoto region of Gion, which traditionally was a "floating world";an area of tea houses, theatre and geisha. These traditions remain vibrant today, but around these tiny secret streets has grown a bombast of modern entertainment: clubs, bars, restaurants etc. Going down these quieter streets I was excluded numerous times for not being Japanese, which is disheartening. After eating at some lonely ma & pa shop with baseball photos everywhere, I ended up in some such bar. I wanted a beer before heading out to what Rough Guide calls an "underground music student bar" in North East Kyoto, but before i knew what was happening, some woman was coming over to talk to me, and she was definitely paid to do so. I had had about a sip of my beer before realising what kind of place I was in. I tried to rush out of there, my hands shaking like Holden Caufield's, and they wanted me to pay them 5000 YEN (50 bucks) for that sip. There was security everywhere, and I was blustered and sore as hell. They told me that by coming in I had agreed to stay for an hour for all I could drink, which I had not understood at all. I wasn;t shaking anymore but just angry and powerless as I passed them 5000 YEN. I vowed not to get myself in anymore situations I couldn't get out of, and I got out of Gion for the student bar, but I was there about an hour early. It was 9pm but now I was completely wiped and completely done with Kyoto. I had vague thoughts of escaping the town right there and then, but I went back to my hostel.

In the morning was beautiful beautiful sun, "Ooh La La" on the radio, two friendly guys from Albany who were biking across Japan (which sounds like something to try), an old rented bike with a bell, and a new map that wasn't illegible from the rain. I then headed back to East Kyoto straight off to go see its traditional Buddhist temples & Shinto shrines. The picture above is from a Shinto shrine called Heian-jingu. It is of a sacred tree that represents the divine consciousness and the spiritual space that we have entered into in the shrine. Quick notes:
-I walked along the 2 kilometre philosopher's path to a few Buddhist temples (Honen-in, and Ginkaku-ji where girls walked with their boyfriends up the steep rocky paths in high heels) in the east hills where all of the facilities were arranged like a garden with the surrounding forests and streams. Nothing seemed imposed but just perfectly placed and tranquil even though it was constantly maintained.
-met a guy from Trois Rivieres and we were both excited to speak French
-took a bath in a public bathhouse naked middle-aged men all around
-biked as fast as I could down a busy shopping street listening to Sloan too loud
-biked along the river and saw my closest sight yet to poverty in these Japanese cities - a old man setting up a tent to sleep by the river for the night
-felt like this song many times

shitsurei desu ga, onamae wa?

2007-10-18T19:20:00.000+09:00

The first image is from the movie Colossal Youth by the director Pedro Costa. In the summer I went to see "In Vanda's Room" with Sean at Cinematheque, thinking that Costa made straight documentaries, and ended up being pulled, and blanched, and completely worn out by the enormity of that movie. And after the credits rolled we got to ask Costa questions, and before the moderator can pick from the hands raised, some guy just calls out "If this movie is so realist, why didn't you put any sex scenes in?" And when Costa had nothing to respond except some mumble about it not really fitting, this guy who (although I could be wrong), has never made anything beautiful in his life, goes, "well maybe next time", as if Costa should be humbled by his omission, and will definitely include some gratuitous fucking in any future project because this guy thinks it's still edgy and therefore authentic. Anyway, these two movies are why I named my blog as I did.

2007-10-18T19:17:00.000+09:00

Eastern Standard Time in West Tokyo

2007-10-17T19:06:00.001+09:00

Hello! This is the first of my posts to come about my new found adventures in Japan and beyond. I arrived yesterday, and am still looking forward to getting settled at my new address in Koganei City, Tokyo. I'm temporarily being put up tonight elsewheres in Koganei by some friendly people whose names slipped right through my sieve mind. But I need to go off & search for food somewhere in this quiet city-in-a-city. So rapid-fire, the photo is over the lakes & lakes of the North West Territories. Many thanks to David & Victor for letting me lean over them to take the photo. Also, what should I pay for the new Radiohead?
-Daniel