Well, tomorrow I am off to Shanghai! Got some cheap tix, so I gots to go. After reading about the Taxi service in Shanghai, I have been trying to polish up on my Chinese, but have since given up. But if we go eat Dim Sum I have a reasonable chance of being understood!

So, you want anything? Lemme know! SARS, penis of endangered animal, mail order bride, Polex watches... Don't say I didn't ask.

I promise plenty of pics when I get back...

This weekend I went up with Matt to visit with Lawton and Gi up in Fukuoka. Lawton is now known as "Rawton" because I know that his kids pronounce his name as "Rawton sensei" when they ask him what he thinks about the recent "Carifornia Erections".

Anyways, we met up with a bunch of friends and aquaintances and went out to Tenjin and Hakata (the happenin' night spots in Fukuoka that accept foreigners and aren't prohibitively expensive), and went somewhere where I had up until that point never had visited nor had any intention of visiting. That's right, we went to the Happy Cock (previously the Crazy Cock). Now there are two of those clubs downtown. The name pretty much sums it up.

The Happy Cocks are a good place to go if you fit the following profile:
*you are a Marine on shore leave.
*you are a Japanese girl (or boy, for all I know) looking to hook up with a Marine.
*you are an obvious (Caucasian or Black, or a really loud Asian) gaijin looking to get some action.
*you don't mind the bartender mixing you a long island with only two different kinds of liquor and Coke.
*you are a person who enjoys the company of Marines when they are hunting for tail and drinking (meaning, you are probably a Marine or a girl looking for one).

Basically, this is Fukuoka's version of a Roppongi bar (like GasPanic).

Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate everything that the Marines are doing and have done to protect our country and its interests, but they tend to be dicks towards anyone that they are not trying to get in the sack, especially when they are drunk.
A while ago, we went to a different club in Tenjin called "Vibe", where a good portion of the Fukuoka hip-hop community often hangs out. This night it was full of Marines and high school aged girls. Anyways, I was halfway into drainin the lizard when I hear a loud knock at the door. "Get the FUCK out of there! My friend needs to use the restroom!". So I opened the door to see what their problem was. Two big mean-looking guys were holding up their friend, and said "I'm sorry but our friend has to puke"(It was shocking to hear them use the word "sorry" because I was expecting to get punched in the face). "I understand, go for it." I said, and waited for them to finish.
He planted his hands onto the urine-soaked tiles, and hey made him puke. He washed his hands, regained his balance, and shook my hand. They all apologized once again and thanked me, inviting me to sit with them. We went over to their table and joined their group. One of them made the following observation:
"You know what? You look like Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park!" so for the rest of the night I was known as "Mike" or "Shinoda". I became their best friend for the night after they found out that I was from California (not just some Japanese guy who spoke great English!). My money was no good, because they insisted on buying me free drinks all night long. They even introduced me to the group of (ugly, underaged) girls they were chatting up, and wanted me to share in their love hotel adventures (but I wasn't quite THAT drunk). I met these guys right before they were deployed into Iraq, and hope that they are all safe right now. Marines can be great guys when you get to know them, although sometimes they are best avoided.

This weekend, I was talking with another Marine who said this to me:
Marine: "So what (nationality) are you?"
Me: "I'm American"
Marine: "Hey, I feel really sorry for what we did to your people during World War II".
Me: "Yeah, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were horrible, but I am American like you. OUR people did it."
Marine: "I know, but I'm sorry for what my country did to your country. That shit ain't right".
Me: "Uh, I'm gonna go get another beer."
Sometimes the meaning doesn't stick to your words no matter how many times you repeat them, and by the time it reaches someone else, all it is is noise devoid of a signal. At times like this it is best to drink more beer. Then it may SEEM like it is making sense, or at least you will forget about the whole deal.

Anyhow, after driving about 10 hours over the weekend, and lacking sleep (partially due to some loud snoring, partially to the Lipovitan, partially to staying out until 5 in the morning, partially to sleeping on linoleum, etc...) I looked like the guy on the can.

Except my red eyes were barely cracked open. Thank God for Audioslave, on all of those long solitary drives back home.

Gi with Matt's dirty sock on face (placed there by self).

Matt with Matt's dirty sock on face (placed there by self).

Truly disturbing.

This is my 1989 Civic Hatchback "Formula". I bought it for a mere 70.000 yen from Harvey, while other people got ripped off by their evil predecessors. Its sorta funny because my teachers always insist that he should have given me the car for free, since it is so old (maybe they will hook me up when shakken rolls around) but it was worth it.

This weekend, I felt the urge to restore it to a state of quasi-cleanliness, and so spent four hours doing so. For the past year, I washed my car two times. As a result, there was moss growing on my car (this is all part of the Japanese aesthetic philosophy, in no part due to laziness). It really doesnt matter if I wash it because it rains all the time and gets dirty very quickly. Before I even considered doing exterior "restoration", the interior needed some major work. Months worth of trash had accumulated inside, and so I donned my hazmat suit, and extracted partially eaten moldy food, long lost reciepts from various places, Joyfull Powerpuff Girls adorned drink bar coupons, long lost email and phone numbers on small wadded up pieces of paper, and about 500 yen in assorted change. Also, I have never vacuumed my car. So I started from the bottom up. Years worth of dust and gravel were pounded from the mats (it took thirty minutes just to smack the dust out of them), and vacuumed from all of the upholstery. Then, I wiped down the whole car with cleaning solution (I had driven through a construction site doing donuts with the windows DOWN, so a thick layer of cement dust had settled onto and into everything, including yours truly. It smelled like I was making concrete after I finished). Next, I organized and bound the wires for the sound system, making everything nice and neat. After that, I was able to move on to the exterior. I washed it down with a potent mixture of hot water, soap, and lemon juice and let it sit in. The lemon juice ate away much of the oxidation and made the car smell like lemonheads. So now my car is in prime condition, probably for the first time since the first ALT who owned it bought it.

The Civic is a great car. It handles well on the windy roads, accelerates acceptably fast enough (I can take some turns faster than the racers, because I don't care if my fenders drag on the asphalt!), can hold its own in the snow, and I have come to completely rely on it. If I didn`t have this car, I would surely have gone insane and probably would have hurt or killed myself or the others around me! I use a car way more over here than I ever did in California. A good public transportation center is one of the things bundled into the meaning of "Japan" as a concept, but clearly this notion is only true in some areas.

As a result, I have put in a Kenwood Sub and mids (compliments of Justin, and thus in some part due to Tatsuya- thanks bro!), a new CD head unit, and some tweeters. I daresay that I have the best sounding system in Kumamoto of all of the JETs, which I put together (with some help) by myself. I spent about an hour on tweaking the system this weekend, and as a result, it sounds much better!

I also have Justin's radar detector set up, and it has on a couple of occasions probably saved me from getting pulled over. Those Japanese cops find the best hiding places, no doubt inspired by playing countless rounds of kakurembo as children with foreign ALTs such as myself. Am I helping to raise some future facist cop, honing his skills? Or am I helping to raise those who will be pursued by the fascist cop, enabling him to perform crucial evasive actions?

If you haven't guessed, I really like my car. This makes me sad because I will probably get rid of it when its due for it's next inspection. But for now, I am happy, and will try to keep it in its present state for as long as I can (not lapse into laziness again).