This is the coolest video I've linked to since Keltech's Star Wars performance. Background: LiveJam 2005 was a concert produced by NHK that aired on Coming of Age Day (now observed on the second Monday in January every year. Prior to 2000 was Jan. 15.) this year.

Without further ado: DJ Kentaro vs. Shinichi "King of Shamisen" Kinoshita

If somebody has information on an official CD/DVD release, please drop me a line.

(via)

There's an old lady who lives a few houses down from us. I usually see her when I return home from work or go out for a walk. In the five years we have known her, she has been known to talk only about one thing, the weather.

- "Hot today, isn't it?"

- "Sure is cold."

- "Looks like it's gonna rain."

- Or some small variation of the above.

Even when you try to talk to her, she speaks over you about the weather. Once, I asked when Big Garbage day was, and she replied about the hot spell we were having. So I eventually gave up trying to talk to her beyond basic greetings and the weather. I accepted it; it's just been like this for five years.

Then, last week, as I walked by she suddenly asked, "Why did the color of your work uniforms change?"

I was too shocked to reply at first, and the moment of silence that followed floated in the humid summer air, suspended for eternity. Then the words stumbled from my mouth automatically, "Sure is hot today..."

She seemed to accept this as an acceptable answer and kind of nodded as I walked away.

Continuing in the vein of WWII, have you ever heard the story of Voytek?

Check it out: The Iranian soldier-bear of Monte Cassino

Longtime readers have often heard of my plans to create a Monkey Army when I move to Thailand. I have thought of conscripting water buffaloes and elephants as well, but I never considered bears. One thing I do know is that any bears who joined my army would not be serving as porters - can you say "6-foot, 500-pound HOPLITE?"

A colleague just related something that he saw on a documentary last night: During WWII, Sumoto was number 173 on a list of 180 Japanese targets to be carpet bombed by the US. Apparently, they got down to number 66 on the list (probably somewhere in Fukui prefecture) before bombing with conventional munitions was made unnecessary by Fat Man and Little Boy.

It took me a while to figure out what could possibly be of military significance on this island (Awajishima) until I remembered that there was a railroad back then (the Nankai "Shima Densha") which might seem useless since there were no bridges to the mainland yet, but when coupled with the numerous deep water ports on the island might have seemed like a significant supply point.

Also, there were big bore gun emplacements that might have threatened the passage of ships through the Naruto Straits - I have to go hiking to that site soon to see if anything remains.

I nominate Napoleon Dynamite as the worst retitled-for-Japan movie of the year. I understand why they didn't release it in theaters here - I mean, the majority of the humor wouldn't carry over to Japanese - but "Bus Man" is the most uninspiring name of any film I can think of.

A few months ago, I wrote a post about the republishing of Little Black Sambo by a Japanese publisher, and my mom left this in the comments:

You used to like the pancakes at Sambo's Restaurant, remember? All that melted "tiger-butter...it used to make me uneasy to look up at the Little Black Sambo sign and wonder how blacks felt...

Today I happened across a link that explains it: McDonalds, Taco Bell, and the first fast food restaurants

There's one thing though:

Is it just me, or is this Sambo sugar-coated?

Sunday, in the early morning hours, I had a dream so very real that I woke up in a cold sweat.

I was riding on the Shinkansen from Los Angeles to Mexico (the first sign that this was a dream, which I realized even as I was having it) with my family. The other people on the train were mostly migrant workers, returning to their homes from a hard day in the fields. A few of them played cards on the floor, taking swigs from warm cans of Tecate and a dirty bottle of mezcal. They were kind of loud and obnoxious as drunken card-playing migrant workers on trains tend to be, but I really didn't notice them at first.

I was speaking to my mom when my brother Adam suddenly stood up and started singing "Me So Horny" like a lounge singer (this part of the dream was clearly influenced by the Richard Cheese album I discovered recently) and leering at the senorita (muy bonita) sitting next to him:

Sittin' at home with my dick on hard
So I got the black book for a freak to call
Picked up the telephone, then dialed the 7 digits
Said, "Yo, this Addy, baby! Are you down with it?"
I arrived at her house, knocked on the door
Not having no idea of what the night had in store
I'm like a dog in heat, a freak without warning
I have an appetite for sex, 'cause me so horny

I was horrified and shouted at him to shut up while eyeing the card players, who were just starting to notice to my brother's impromptu serenade:

Girls always ask me why I fuck so much
I say "What's wrong, baby doll, with a quick nut?"
'Cause you're the one, and you shouldn't be mad
I won't tell your mama if you don't tell your dad
I know he'll be disgusted when he sees your pussy busted
Won't your mama be so mad if she knew I got that ass?
I'm a freak in heat, a dog without warning
My appetite is sex, 'cause me so horny

By now, the poker hombres had pulled out knives and were yelling at him. "Hey Ese, we gonna cut your worm off and put it in our mezcal!"

I jumped into their midst, swinging, but my punches in dreams never seem to connect and they swarmed over me. My last act, before fading out, was to scream "You can't hurt him... He has HOT PANTS!"

Cue waking up in a cold sweat.

I called Adam later that day. He said he was at Osaka castle with some friends, so although I told him about how he had been singing 2 Live Crew on a train to Mexico in my dream, my heart wasn't into telling him that his worm had probably been harvested and consumed with a slice of lime.

Also, I was still very much befuddled by the meaning of the dream and especially the concept of HOT PANTS. I have no idea what they are.

So I kept this all bottled up inside until Monday night, when I set out to create a dish to commemorate the dream and partially actualize its existence. There was a pot of leftover Tom Yum Goong soup stock left on the stove, so that's what I started with.

Recipe for AWAJI ISLAND HOT PANTS SOUP

1. Add the following into a pot of day-old Tom Yum Goong stock:
Fresh-picked button tomatoes, halved
Chicken broth
Chicken meat cut into strips
Daikon, cut into paper thin rounds
Tofu from overpriced & snobby Kyoto store, whole
Onion, sliced
Fresh habanero pepper from the garden, sliced
Dash of bourbon, for lack of mezcal

2. Season to taste with black pepper, white pepper, and Sriracha hot sauce

3. Top with diced green onions, fresh coriander, and slice of lime

//

So how was it?

Pretty damn good. Also, pretty damn spicy. Eat a couple big bowls of this and the secret of HOT PANTS will be revealed to you, too!

My homeboy T is blogging it up during his month-long visit to Uzbekistan.

Is Tashkent the ultimate escape destination after a painful life decision?

FIND OUT HERE: JOMON NEWS

This is a public service announcement to all gaijin couples thinking of getting married in Japan. If you indeed choose to make this wonderful commitment in the Land of the Rising Sun, be forewarned that you will be asked to write your name on the wedding registration paper more times and in more ways than you can possibly imagine. This is mainly due to corrections made necessary by the confusion caused when two non-Japanese want to perform some official action normally only performed with at least one Japanese counterpart.

Man, we ruffled the system up so badly they wouldn't even let us get married the day we went in, they insisted on performing a day-long inspection of the documents first. Even after allowing us to get married on the second day, they called us back in because they had made another mistake. Then later that night, they called again announce yet another one - the lady in charge ended up coming by our house on our wedding night to get the papers in order.

All's well that ends well, right? And we weren't about to let the small things ruin it for us. It seemed it was all behind us, and all was good. Then today we found out they issued us the wrong wedding certificate (different from what we requested). Here we go again...

There is a group of cars on Awaji island who all sport the same decals- a couple of these boxy cars, a vintage Nissan, a camaro, and a large van just to name a few.

Come check out what I've been up to the past week: Tokushima Awa Odori 2005 Photos

Alternatively, view them as a slideshow.

A couple hours ago, I sat here a happy man. I sit here again now even happier!

We are married! There is much rejoicing in the streets of Sumoto!

Next, the Wedding. Tentatively planned for next February. We're thinking of a beach wedding in Thailand, and I, for once, am willing to deal with the yuppie resorts I usually detest... Somehow "wedding" and "private beach" just sound nice together.

And now, we are off to a nice dinner together. Just like we have a thousand times before, but tonight is special. Thanks for all your blessings.

Hey all,

I have ten days off work and am spending most of them soaking up rays on the beach. We went to the Awa Odori in Tokushima last night and I took over a gigabyte of photos with my new D50 - I hope to be posting a series of these over the next few days. It was truly an awesome experience, the largest festival I have ever seen in Japan.

I have a bigger announcement, though. Nam and I finally got all the paperwork in order, and will be getting married at the city office within the next few days! I'll post updates to let you all know, meanwhile, I hope you are all having fun during my summer vacation!

LINK

Continuing with yesterday's Built for the Kill theme (cue D&B), today I bring to you: Shark vs. Octopus

Whoa. Check out the latest comment on my Black Bus post from last year:

You are not understand nothing yet... gaijin

The commenter, Ryoma, is either a big fan or a cock-hoggin' goose-stepper - I just can't figure out if his comment is high praise or the lowest of insults.

You are not understand nothing... I have to admit, this has a special ring to it. The double negative implies that I know something... On the other hand, perhaps nothing is a reference to mu, the state of nothingness one achieves through meditation - or perhaps in Spain, where Ryoma is posting from, through several bong hits. Now that is just hurtful, man.

At least he has hope in me, as implied by the trailing "yet." Maybe he sees my potential for not understanding nothing. Now that might be something to hope for!

Anybody else have any insight into this?

Ryoma, damn you! Why must you confound me so? RYOOOOOOOOOMAAAAAAAA!

LINK

Proving once again that Praying Mantis technique is superior to Flappy Bird:

Go see the final result (actually, this is the final result in a sense; the bird doesn't come back to life or anything): LINK

There's this special needs/mentally challenged/invertedly endowed/lugubriously entertaining/whatever the fuck the PC demigods are calling it this month (I'll just use "retarded") guy working in my building who worships me because I stood up for him my first year here. Some newly-made manager/fucknut wanker was just letting loose on the poor guy for stacking boxes wrong or some such bullshit, and went so far as to slap him around a bit, at which point I intervened and shoved said fucknut on his ass and told him to shut the fuck up. Long story short, the retarded guy really took a liking to me after that (I never got in trouble even though everybody in the company heard about it; the manager got shipped off to Bumfuck, Kyushu to oversee a 3-person production line for replacement AC parts a couple years ago. Ha-ha.).

Now I have a problem because my retarded friend has started expressing this affection in a physical manner - by hitting me. At first it was just a soft jab in the arm or a friendly tap on the shoulder, but homeboy must be watching Rocky movies at home or something, because he punched me in the kidney this afternoon after lunch and I doubled over, nearly crying out for my mommy.

You see, this guy's job is to move boxes of product around the factory by handlift all day long, which requires a lot of heavy lifting and the like. He is muscular and fit; the reason he didn't unload on the fucknut manager guy that day long ago, or any of the apparently numerous times before that, was not because he lacked the physical capability to do so. It is just that he frightens like a small child, and can be cowed into submission by tiny-pricked little bullies even half his size, because he is so sweet-natured. Even so, I know one day he might actually hurt me with an unluckily-placed strike. Yet I feel guilty doing anything to prevent this rite of male bonding.

The way I see this going is that one day he'll break one of my ribs while playfully socking me with that big shit-eating grin on his angelic face, and then I'll have to show him who the big dog is again. After I'm done crying, of course. I just hope nobody's around to watch me slapping a retard at work- oh, well. Life has a funny way of running things out the way they are supposed to be, and who the fuck am I to change that?

This week seems to be List Week for some reason. This one's from Osaka Bill:

1. Your houseplants are alive, and you can't smoke any of them.

2. Having sex in a twin bed is out of the question.

3. You keep more food than beer in the fridge.

4. 6:00 AM is when you get up, not when you go to bed.

5. You hear your favorite song in an elevator.

6. You watch the Weather Channel.

7. Your friends marry and divorce instead of "hook up" and "break up."

8. You go from 130 days of vacation time to 14.

9. Jeans and a sweater no longer qualify as "dressed up."

10. You're the one calling the police because those %&@# kids next door won't turn down the stereo.

11. Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you.

12. You don't know what time Taco Bell closes anymore.

13. Your car insurance goes down and your car payments go up.

14. You feed your dog Science Diet instead of McDonald's leftovers.

15. Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.

16. You take naps.

17. Dinner and a movie is the whole date instead of the beginning of one.

18. Eating a basket of chicken wings at 3 AM would severely upset, rather than settle, your stomach.

19. You go to the drug store for ibuprofen and antacid, not condoms and pregnancy tests.

20. A $4.00 bottle of wine is no longer "pretty good stuff."

21. You actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time.

22. "I just can't drink the way I used to" replaces "I'm never going to drink that much again."

23. 90% of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.

24. You drink at home to save money before going to a bar.

25. When you find out your friend is pregnant you congratulate them instead of asking "Oh S*$# what the hell happened?"

Bonus:
26: You read this entire list looking desperately for one sign that doesn't apply to you and can't find one to save your sorry old butt. Then you forward it to a bunch of old pals & friends 'cause you know they'll enjoy it & do the same.

I have decided that the future capitol city of my empire shall be named Justinopolis.

City Codes of Justinopolis (work in progress)
1. Stupid people shall be shot on sight.

2. Second verse, same as the first.

3. Piracy - a serious problem (from a certain point of view) that we refuse to treat with ineffective laws (or confuse with terrorist activities).

4. Robots are cool.

5. Speaking of which, all AI scientists will be guaranteed a girlfriend.

6. Hacking good.

7. Faking bad.

8. Ministry of Information: D. Chappelle (he needs a new job)

9. Speaking of which: Independent reporting good.

10. Bicycles also good.

E-mail: cosmicbuddha AT gmail DOT com

...............

Skype name: cosmicbuddha

Originally by Dave Barry, I believe, but mailed to me from a friend in Singapore. Universal truths are indeed universal:

1. Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."

3. There is a very fine line between "hobby," and, "mental illness."

4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours.

5. And when God, who created the entire universe with all of its glories, decides to deliver a message to humanity, He WILL NOT use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.

6. You should not confuse your career with your life.

7. No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.

8. When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy.

9. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

10. Never lick a steak knife.

11. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

12. The most powerful force in the universe is gossip.

13. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.

14. Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie.

15. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.

16. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.

17. The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.

18. A person who is nice to you, but is rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.

19. Your friends love you anyway.

20. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic.

This one is for the Big Ho, who once wrote to me about his one-eyed cat and how it likes eating used Q-Tips:

WHY DO CATS LIKE EATING EARWAX ??

I personally prefer training my cats to eat used snotrags, but also to never accept any from strangers.

A tribute to everyone who visited/called this weekend:

The Undrinkable Cocktail

Thanks to you all for leaving the airag at home... Last night I watched the fireworks and slept very, very well.

...has been postponed for the time being in lieu of:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Celebrations started early this year, and I have one last party to get to before the night is over. I've completely recovered from the heatstroke/food poisoning/mid-life crisis barfing thing the other day, so thanks to all those who wrote.

Nam performed Thai dance at the Awaji Westin today, perhaps for the last time, and I took around 500 photos with my new DSLR, so I'll be posting about that soon.

Until then,
Justin Yoshida I
King of Awaji Island and Benefactor of Surrounding Territories

... for I will never eat sharkfin soup again.

Yesterday I was in Himeji on a business trip. After our meetings, we went to the top of Himeji castle in the miserable heat and walked our clients a fair distance to their posh hotel. We then walked to the inconveniently located and much crappier hotel that we were staying at (a pox on our financial dept.), changed out of our dripping-with-perspiration dress shirts into casual ones, and immediately headed out for Chinese food back at the client's hotel restaurant.

I was on my third small glass of beer before the food came, and had just finished my bowl of sharkfin and crab soup and a couple of light entrees when I felt the rumbling in my stomach. An ominous rumbling.

To make a long story short, I suffered from either:
A. Heatstroke
B. Dehydration
C. Food Poisoning
D. Thermal shock, or
E. All of the above

I did not make it to the restroom in time.

Cupping my hand over my mouth only resulted in directing the explosive stream of sour vomit all over my shirt and slacks. My shirtfront was covered with semi-digested bits of crab meat and black fungus from the soup, plus other sour beer-smelling detritus.

I finally made it into a stall, got lightheaded, and almost dunked my head in the toilet before I realized there was an unflushed turd in it. This made me purge even more, after flushing a few hundred times (even I cannot sink so low as to puke on another man's turd).

After I washed off my face and most of the puke off my clothes, I attempted to dry my shirt so as not to make it immediately noticeable that I had lost my cookies when I returned to the table. I fooled nobody for very long, since I turned green after smelling the greasy Chinese food again.

I excused myself before the next wave of nausea hit, weakly stumbled to the hotel lobby and hailed a cab outside. The cabbie was being a fucking cunt and seeing my still-damp shirtfront, asked if I'd been drinking. I said "what's it to you," and he threatened to stop the car and kick me out. I threatened to puke on the floor if he stopped before we reached my hotel... Thus I got back in a precarious state of stalemate.

I collapsed on the hotel bed and the world went away for a few sweet, blessed hours. I woke up before midnight feeling completely restored, and was unable to sleep again. I took a walk on the empty streets of the city, swearing off sharkfin soup and remembering the most important things in life.

With work, I am disenchanted.

The most important thing in life, at any given time, is not to be puking your guts out.

NHK is the national public broadcasting station in Japan. They send subscription fee collectors to seemingly every front door in the nation on a semi-regular basis, and in my experience, get turned away more often than not.

1.17 mil. households refuse to pay NHK subscription fees

People usually try to get out of paying by saying that they either do not own a TV, or do not watch NHK. The latter isn't an excuse at all; you're supposed to pay anyway. I always used to use the former until a few years ago when the NHK guy pointed out my newly-purchased satellite dish and I had to explain it wasn't for a TV, it was for my global mind control experiments, and used the following lull in conversation as a chance to slam the door on his face.

In a similar way, most newbies to Japan initially think they can get away with a verbal Gaijin Smash (ala Azrael), but after years of verbal abuse from everyone the collectors are quite crafty and usually come prepared with laminated English phrase cards (Pay up you dirty, lying foreigner! GIVE ME MONEY!). Most recently, I tried acting like a member from the local Mormon church (there really is a Sumoto branch of the Church of LDS) and I like to think I came pretty close to converting the guy - I tried to give him a copy of the Book of Mormon that the real Mormons had left on my doorstep a few months before, but his formidable training eventually kicked back in and before you know it I was resorting back to door-slamming again.

If you DO actually pay the subscription fees, you are issued an NHK sticker to post above your doorway. I have known people who peeled these stickers off of vacant houses to post on their own, figuring it would show they had already paid, but ultimately, the joke was on them because NHK actually targets houses with the sticker (I suspect it is much easier to shame Japanese people into paying a second time than it is the first time, since it implies cheapness rather than moral belief as a reason for not paying the "mandatory" subscription fees).

The most hardcore NHK collector I ever met came knocking one day when we were living in the slums of Osaka, in Nishinari. I tried every excuse and gambit in the book, but this guy was firm and wanted the money, no excuses. When I tried slamming the door, he blocked it with his foot!!! He started cussing me out in gutteral Osaka-ben, which was a uniquely surreal experience - being cussed out by an NHK fee collector! Eventually, I tricked him into moving his foot and successfully slammed the door in his face, which infuriated him even more, and he started pounding on it from the outside and yelled at us to open it... At that point, the yakuza living upstairs opened his front door, leaned over the railing, and demanded to know what the fuck was going on, and "did he need to come down and kill some urusai motherfuckers?"

The NHK guy got spooked and left the apartment complex entirely. We laughed as we watched him walking away down the road - he heard us laughing and shook his fist up at us, mumbling and swearing to himself, kicking at a crumpled soda can on the street.

This sounds like a scene straight from Ishi the Killer:

...Nagasawa then punched the victim in the face, saying he did not answer politely enough...

...Nagasawa then allegedly followed the victim into his apartment and forced him to take off his contact lenses...

"Are you wearing contact lenses now? Put them in my eyes," Nagasawa told the 31-year-old victim....

After Nagasawa's arrest Thursday in Kawasaki, just south of Tokyo, police put on display what they confiscated from his home -- 124 pairs of glasses and 30 pairs of contact lenses of a wide variety...

...Police did not comment on his motive but Nagasawa reportedly said: "I felt good when I wore the glasses of a friend in my junior high school days. I have ever since been searching for glasses that fit me."

Sometimes the quotes from criminals in Japan are just so surreal. Just yesterday, I was watching on the news about a 14 year old kid who hit a man in a wheelchair on the head as hard as he could with a dumbell because he was angry and felt like hitting someone, anyone. I guess the poor guy in the chair just picked the wrong moment to wheel across the street.

Uninspiring story #1:
The Japanese girl who really went to Los Angeles in pursuit of life ala Beverly Hills 90210. (seriously.)

Uninspiring story #2:
Her best friend, who followed two weeks later.

Inspiring story #1:
My former female coworker, who taught herself English by reading the newspapers used as stuffing in the pineapple boxes shipped from Hawaii to the fruit stand she worked at as a child.

Inspiring story #2:
Japanese (especially schoolkids) who can't even return basic greetings in English, yet can instantly extend a middle finger and shout a healthy "FAKKU YOU!" like it's second nature.

On a related note, I'm one of those people who learn languages the fastest by concentrating on the following areas first and foremost:
A. Learning how to order food
B. Learning how to ask where the crapper is, and
C. Learning how to say "wench," "ale," "stanchion," and the other real essentials
(Bonus: "Cowper's gland" in Japanese is, simply, "Cowper," yet "Fallopian tubes" is not "Fallopia," as one would expect, which is a damn shame because it would have made a damn fine name for a 660cc sub-compact made by Mazda.)

Fuck a classroom. It's all about what inspires you.

So it has finally come to this: The incidental tourist

An American woman opts to pay $4,300 for a ten day vacation/medical trip to Hungary where she gets dental work done that would have cost an estimated $11,150 in the states with insurance. No word on whether she will play the next Jaws in the 007 series... Apparently it worked out well for her, though.

Come to think of it, the hospitals and clinics I've been to in Thailand were cleaner than what I'm used to seeing in Japan or the US - and they were a hell of a lot cheaper to boot (another fact - completely irrelevant and uninteresting to my fiance if she should read this - is that the nurses were a lot cuter as well, for those who are interested in such details).

Anyway, people flying out of the country to get medical treatment on their own dime because it's cheaper than what's covered by their medical insurance domestically - is it just me, or is that a really sad state of affairs?

(This post is dedicated to my little sister who is starting medical school in Chicago this very day, and who I expect to cause great change and improvement to the American medical system before I go home sometime in the mid- to long-term future. Good luck, sis.)