The greatest mistake I ever made was falling in love with something I could never have.
Seven years ago I visited Japan on a whim and a $450 plane ticket, and promptly I fell in love. With such wonderfully enticing foods, locales, language, and seemingly everything else, how could I not want to be there? So it was that less than three years later I set out on the JET program to live and work in the place I loved. I got a taste of the life I wanted to live.
After three years on JET my time was up, but I didn't feel like my "Japan life" was over. I applied for jobs in Japan and in the nick of time managed to land one. I would be living in Tokyo in an amazing house, and living the dream of working a "real" job. What could be better?!
In the words of Chris Martin, sometimes the things that you love just don't love you back.
After a particularly long period of waiting, my work visa application was denied, and I was ejected unceremoniously back into the legions of the unemployed, this time looking in a city and even a country that I didn't really want to be in.
Fast forward two years later, and I'm still in that city with another rejection under my belt. It's becoming abundantly clear that Japan just doesn't want me back.
It's hard watching your dreams crumble in front of you. On days like today, I really think that getting that $450 ticket was the biggest mistake I've yet made. Had I never made it over to Japan, maybe today I wouldn't be stuck in this seemingly-endless cycle of disappointment.
In Tokyo, the number of annual train rides per person is 742.
Tokyo's population is 35 million. I'm not sure if each of those people is taking 742 rides per year, but it's nonetheless impressive, considering New York's population is 19 million.
Paris: 216
London: 129
New York: 94
Boston: ha ha what?
Other facts:
The average delay for the shinkansen (bullet train) for the entire year of 2007 was 30 seconds. Let's see the airlines duplicate that!
The shinkansen started running in 1964. "Bullet" train in the US? 2000. 36 years later.
France's TGV system is almost as extensive as that of the shinkansen, spanning 1180 route-miles. Vive la France!
Not long ago I was reading a monthly publication released by some sort of train-system watchdog in Japan. Being that I am in love with the idea of quick and non-shitty rail transit, it was pretty interesting to me, despite being dry.
One particular section that caught my eye was a timeline of events regarding the production of shinkansen (bullet) trains in Japan. On this timeline, I read the following: in 1972, all new Series 1 (I think it was 1, but it doesn't really matter) trains were outfitted with scrolling displays on the outside. These displays are the LCD kind of thing that show basic information like route number, destination, name, etc.
What struck me is that a great number of the trains on the MBTA subway system in Boston still have paper/static displays on their side...and half of the time they show the wrong destination. So to recap: Japanese trains got digital displays in 1972. Almost 40 years later, the MBTA has yet to catch up.
In other news, I noticed in the news paper this morning that the MBCR (the commuter rail division of the MBTA) has given up on its bid to buy new trains from the Toronto transit system. Of note is the fact that those trains are 20 years old. So wait, if those 20-year-old trains are considered "new," how the hell old are the old trains?!
With our public transit system in such a state, it's a wonder anyone uses it at all. Way to go!
Yesterday evening I attended an alumni hobnobbing function for my college. It was interesting enough, I suppose, with the requisite social posturing and asking how/what everyone is doing. This time, of course, there was a great deal of condolences about lousy "at least it's a job" jobs, along with well-wishings in the torpid economy. Nothing particularly surprising.
At this event I was forced to recognize something about my own job that I knew all along but didn't want to think about. Whenever I'm asked what I do, I tell people where I work. I'd rather not tell them the specifics about the peon-like existence I live. When people hear where I work, they always make noises of being impressed; after all, it does sound kind of impressive. Naturally I would rather keep it at that, but social graces dictate that one must press the issue and ask my actual title. So they ask.
Invariably I tell them my position, and I've come to recognize easily just how quickly the interest fades from their face. Let me correct myself: the interest doesn't fade so much as it flees. Unfortunately, for both myself and the "interested" party, social graces again dictate that they continue forward and ask about what exactly I do. This is where I tell them, and we both do our best to steer the conversation in a new direction.
I hate how I bore people.
The building I now work in houses a great number of financial institutions, which puts me in the enviable position of being in frequent contact with "financial types." I've spent quite a few elevator rides listening to them gab. Aside from wanting to throttle most of them for (even minutely) being a part of the industry that has brought the world economy to its knees, I wouldn't mind throwing any one of them out of a top floor window for forcing their loud stupid-ass conversations on everyone else in hearing distance.
Sample conversations include such gems as:
"...that won't be seeing any action until Q3! Haw haw haw!"
Honestly, who says Q3? Just say "third quarter" like everyone else!
"...and she asked me if I wanted any help on the Johnson account and I said 'do you need the hours?' Hee hee hee!"
I take exception to the use of the phrase "the xx account." It's just lame.
"...I am a complete douchebag and love talking in acronyms and silly buzzwords to make myself sound important! Har har har!"
Not an actual conversation...sadly.
Unfortunately I can't quite remember any of the stinkier piles of verbal doo doo, so you'll have to just bear with my lame attempts at recollecting conversations that I try desperately to sear from my mind.
Of note is the fact that when I am conversing in the elevator with coworkers, likely those finance people are thinking "What an idiot, and what stupid language does he think he's talking in anyway?"
Natto is a Japanese concoction made up of fermented soybeans. It's supposed to taste good on white rice and with mustard. As an American and somewhat sane person, I don't have the same appreciation for Natto that many Japanese do. Maybe it's the fact that it looks like rabbit poo, smells like weeks-old sweaty socks, and has the consistency of mucous. To me it tastes like funky coffee, which doesn't necessarily mean I dislike Natto. I just don't like it.
Imagine my surprise and horror to discover the work refrigerator absolutely packed with the stuff. The first time I discovered it, I was so bewildered that I had to retreat to the safety of my office to take stock of this new development. Over the period of a week or so the Natto vanished, with only a hint of grungy socks lingering as evidence that it had ever been there.
Apparently a local New England maker allows our office to order it in quantity; all of the Japanese workers here swear that it's actually better than Japanese-made Natto. Such a statement, of course, is a huge deal, as anyone worth his salt in Japan knows that anything Japanese is far superior to its equivalent from other countries.
This time around (it happens with a certain regularity) I got in on the action and ordered a couple tubs myself. I just can't wait to have that slimy stuff hanging from my chin.
In the States, I've gone from being "average" to definitely on the small side, according to clothing retailers. It's a pain in the ass.
In Japan, being "American small" was a relative advantage. I was somehow considered a size large there (somewhat of an ego boost), and most things fit me very well and looked damn good. Hot damn. This was true for pretty much everything except hats.
According to Japanese people, they have huge faces. What this really means is that they have huge heads. Now before you get riled thinking I'm saying something racially unkind, ask a Japanese person about it. Besides, I have pictures to prove it. Anyway, in Japan my head is like the head of a pin. It's miniscule.* It made for a painful time when shopping amongst the many fashionable choices of headgear.
I'd thought I would have escaped the phenomenon when returning to the States. Sadly, it's simply not true; I still have a tiny head. Normal men's hats engulf my head like pacman eating one of those little dots, and of course I can't wear women's hats, which tend to the pink and pastel side of things. I've resorted to children's hats, which are universally crappy in build quality and also hard to find in colors other than "very bright" and "related to cartoons and movie merchandising."
It's a tough life.
*Ironically enough, in Japan the statement "you have such a small face/head" is perceived as a compliment, much as "you have such a big nose" is. They're a part of the ideal beauty as represented by white people. As you can imagine, me with my child-sized head and king-sized nose, I was a frickin' god. Or at least, so the story should have been.
Last week I finally caved to the pressure and got myself a cell phone. Let me tell you, it was a difficult decision. I had been holding out for some miraculous and entirely unexpected leap in American technology that would suddenly put us on par with the rest of the world in handset technology, but sadly my dreams went unanswered.
I bought a phone that instead is no better than the one I bought four years ago in Japan.
As far as phones go, it's all right. It makes calls, it receives calls, it gives a company an excuse to totally rip me off. I have to say that after a few days of playing with it, it's nice enough, but only last night did I discover its greatest flaw: It has no strap loop.
A "strap" is a little phone accessory that is wildly popular in Japan. For the first couple of years in Japan I'd held out on buying one because I thought they were pointless and distracting. Then I realized that there was an incredible variety of cool stuff specifically made for dangling from a phone. Fast forward to January 2008 when I last spent time in Japan, and you'd see me buying up every cool one I could find in anticipation of the long dry period ahead in which I'd be forced to live in the States.
Fast forward again, and you'll find me discovering that the phone I'd just bought doesn't have a space (in the form of a little hole/loop in the shell of the phone) for a strap to fit. I was, as you can imagine, devastated. So devastated, in fact, that I have considered exchanging the phone for another model.
It sounds idiotic I know, but sometimes it's the small things that keep you afloat. I really wanted to use those things!
It's a hot week. In rural western Massachusetts, that means we get up to eighty-five degrees with a humidity of seventy percent or more. The air feels heavy when you walk outside, and it's a recipe for a good deal of sweat. Everyone complains bitterly about how "oppressive" and hot it is.
But I have a not-so-secret weapon.
I have been "lucky" enough to have lived through much, much worse. You see Gyoda, where I lived in Japan for three years, borders Kumagaya, which is widely known as the hottest city in Japan. By virtue of the fact that the two towns are right next to each other, this also makes Gyoda the hottest town in Japan. Don't believe me? Look it up, though you'll probably have to do it in Japanese.
But anyway, it is hot there. While I was there it regularly reached ninety-five during the day, usually with ninety percent humidity. The summer I left, it actually reached one hundred and seven (point six!) degrees, again with that same lovely humidity. Phoenix ain't got nuthin'.
"Oppressive" doesn't begin to describe the air in Gyoda. Walk outside, and you're hit smack in the face with a brick wall of heat and humidity. You haven't sweat until you've spent a summer there, I can tell you. Literally the moment you walk out of the sweetly air-conditioned train, your shirt is soaked. Add to that the fact that you're using a bike to get anywhere, along with the fact that your apartment's air conditioner is broken (and will be for three years), and it's a surefire way to get heatstroke. I'm pretty sure I had it every day there.
So now when I sit in the relatively balmy New England heat, I just remember that I've been through worse. This is nothing!
But somehow when I tell that to people, they don't quite appreciate it...
Today was lawn-mowing day.
Lately I have made small inroads into "greening" my parents' lifestyle. Why not also take a stab at their grass-butchering routine? On paper, it's a very good idea; conventional gas mowers are loud, smelly, inefficient beasts, and our particular mower's blades are so dull that it tends to bend grass rather than cut. Oldschool push-style mowers are quiet, emissions-free, and would give me a workout pushing them around. I could even listen to some tunes while I mowed. Just me and the outdoors, and no combustion engine to get in the way. To me, there should really be no question as to which option is better. So it couldn't hurt to dust off one of their two (two!) push mowers just to see what it would be like, right?
It was a backbreaking, sweaty, horribly misguided, and short-lived experiment. At the beginning the thing cut with aplomb, tossing clippings behind it in a satisfying arc. I smiled when it happened, but I hadn't yet realized that I was cutting very thin grass near the driveway . Then I got into the thick of things, and it got hairy very quickly. On anything but the absolute sparsest of weeds, the thing would choke up and become a very heavy plow, digging itself into the lawn where it should have been cutting. By the time I'd "mowed" about two meters worth of lawn space, I had stopped probably five times to see if there was a buildup of grass or a stick that might be obstructing the spinning blades. No such luck; this thing just sucked. Adjusting the cut-height seemed like a good idea, but did nothing noticeably useful. So I gave up, cursing and stumbling as I dragged the hunk of useless metal back to the garage to get the gas mower.
I can see why people tend to deride the old push mower. What a terrible experience! I think that there's probably a reason that these relics were left to gather dust in the garage, beyond the simple answer that gas mowers are slightly easier. Perhaps they are broken or very dull. Perhaps some magical new technological wonderfulness has been poured into the newfangled ones (which look exactly the same) that virtually all of the neighbors use. Certainly, this lawn isn't going to get a carbon-neutral mowing with our current options.
Chalk it up as a work in progress.
Found this on one of my favorite design blogs today.
Being rather terrified of heights, I can imagine very few ways to have dinner that are less appealing.
The car I'm currently sometimes able to use is a throwback to the early 90s, with only a tape player and radio for musical selection. The tape player spits out those tape adapters you can use with an iPod, leaving me with the radio.
Bad as radio is, I spend hours with my finger on the "seek" button trying to find a decent song. I tend to average about one per twenty minutes of constant seeking. It passes the time and isn't as sleep-inducing as the hum of the tires on the road.
In Boston, there is a fairly decent selection of stations from which to choose: rock, hip-hop, classical, pop, and fringe indie stuff. I noticed on my way back to Western MA from Boston yesterday that as I progressed further into the country, the more and more the main choice of music was country. By the time I was still a half an hour from my home, the overall number of stations had dwindled from over twenty to less than ten, of which five were playing solid voice-twangin' boo-hooin' crapass country music.
Really gives you an idea of the kind of place I live in.
It's been so long, so long. I know I haven't posted and there goes most of my small readership, but hopefully those who are using RSS will pick up this post. Huzzah! Really, I haven't had much to write about while back in the States. But I'll start back up with a tale of my most recent shopping trip.
When I'm back in the States, I like to get some new clothes items since my favorite stores aren't in Japan and also Japanese fashion only goes so far with me. You don't want to see me in full Japanese getup; you'd probably wet yourself laughing.
I've heard about how clothing designers/retailers have been secretly making sizes bigger in order to increase/maintain consumer confidence. You know, a size 2 or whatever is no longer what it used to be; a size 2 now is the same as what used to be a size 4. I wasn't sure if I believed it until my most recent venture into the mall. I used to be a solid medium. Shirts, pants, whatever. I certainly haven't gotten any smaller in the three years I've been in Japan, but apparently everyone else has gotten a lot bigger. I can't fit into anything labeled as a "medium" anymore. I've been moved down to a small, and even then things are huge.
What's telling though is that in every store, smalls are either very few or completely sold out. This tells me that either no one is a small or there are quite a few smalls who are buying everything out of the store. This is especially true on clearance racks. While there are racks and racks of M through XXL, there are (for example) three S-sized shirts.
An outrage! My only hope it seems is to go back to Japan to buy stuff that actually fits me. Hopefully without glitter, chains, and excessive fasteners.
Last night I went to a local (ish) bar for an event my sister's gradschool department was having. It was the first time I've been in an American bar since coming home from Japan. It's your classic New England bar with pool tables, beer, and lots of white people.
Not long after arriving I realized I wanted to use the bathroom. So I went in search of it. When I got there I noticed two doors, one for women and one handicap bathroom. I figured the men's room must be somewhere close by but couldn't see it. So I stood there looking confused and waited for the bartendress to help me. It never happened, and I looked like an idiot, no doubt.
In Japan, it's not uncommon for bathrooms in a bar (Izakaya) to be in a confusing place. All you have to do is look like you're searching for something, and inevitably one of the very helpful staff will show you to the bathroom. It's a wonderful arrangement. Here, obviously that does not work.
Cue reverse culture shock.
Bar none the hardest thing for me to adjust to since coming to Japan has been the degree to which people smoke here. Coming from Boston where smoking in public (technically, "anywhere people are working") buildings has been banned for years, it was like stepping into Europe...except worse.
Here, a "no smoking section" is often a tiny area of a restaurant in which smoking is not allowed, though there is no means or motivation to prevent the massive quantities of smoke from the smoking section from wafting over and ruining my meal...every time I eat out. And literally, just about everyone smokes. Eat at a restaurant that allows smoking at all, and you're guaranteed a smoky time. Luckily, it does seem like restaurants that are fully smoke-free are slowly becoming more common.
This is not to say that I think people shouldn't smoke. If they want to do that to themselves, that's all well and good. I also don't think that they should stop smoking in places they're allowed to smoke. It's unfortunate for me, but it's their right. However, the one piece of the puzzle that has bothered me the most is smoking parents. I can't tell you how many times a day I see mom puffing up with her infant sitting right next to her. Do these people have any concept of "second hand smoke" health risks? Though I can't be sure, it certainly seems like they don't. Just look at (aforementioned) horrible implementation of non-smoking areas, as well as the blatant disregard smokers here have of the people and loved ones around them. In a culture obsessed with not ruffling the feathers of others, I find such a thing kind of out of place.
Of course, it doesn't help that the government has a large holding in Japan Tobacco. Why let anyone know how bad the shit is for you when a huge portion of your yearly budget comes from tobacco revenue?
Last night in trying to pull a box of cling wrap from a drawer I somehow managed to gash my index finger on the metal teeth that are supposed to (but somehow don't do it very well) cut the wrap.
Apart from being an almost mind-numbingly humiliating injury, I've discovered it makes for rather challenging chopsticks usage.
As today I was biting into a tasty おにぎり (onigiri: a Japanese riceball snack), I realized as I got to the tuna filling that I couldn't stand to have the filling facing downward.
Background for those not in the know: onigiri come in a zillion varieties, with the most popular sold at convenience stores tending to have a filling of some sort (fish eggs, tuna, salmon, pickled seaweed...). Though the filling is in the center, it tends to be near the top or the bottom. Imagine the "top" or "bottom" of pizza or something.
Anyway, I figured that it made no sense to have the filling on the top, because there are more taste buds at the bottom half of my mouth. I flipped the onigiri over, and it just felt wrong. Where did this irrational feeling come from? I suppose from a lifetime of eating toast with spread on top?
Regardless, the snack was finished without further incident.
Recently I've taken to reading The Little Prince in Japanese as a way to beef up my rather pisspoor Japanese reading ability. It's a grueling but excellent way to practice.
Today I came across one particular passage that really stuck with me.
Spoken from the viewpoint of a six-year-old boy:
"Grownups love numbers. When talking about a new friend, they don't ask about the most important things. Instead of 'What kind of voice does he have?' or 'What's his favorite game?' or 'Does he collect butterflies?' they ask 'How old is he?' 'How many brothers does he have?' 'How much does he weigh?' or 'What's his father's salary?' By asking such things, finally they can understand a person. If you say something like 'There's a beautiful house with bricks the color of roses, with blooming Geraniums on the sills and so many pigeons on the roof...,' grownups can't imagine it. You can't say that. If you say 'I saw a million-dollar house!' then grownups will get interested. 'That's beautiful!' they might say."
I love this passage. It makes me think of everything that's wrong with the way people prioritize their lives these days.
I found out today that Saturday is apparently some as-yet-unheard-of holiday called "Sweetness Day" or something similarly idiotic. Apparently it's the day in which you "give sweets to your sweetie."
WTF? Isn't that what that other Hallmark-Holiday, Valentine's Day, is for?
Jesus, the things people buy into.
A lot of literature and other stuff comes to all JET participants from the main office and others. I tend to flip through stuff, including essays, articles, photographs, etc.
The one thing I can tell you that I feel every time is intense jealousy. You see while I live a very mundane and decidedly un-Japanese life in the most indescript of places in Japan, others are out participating in local festivals, living the local life, living a life with something meaningful. My featureless section of featureless Saitama often feels like it has absolutely nothing going for it. I get jealous and throw out the materials I receive.
I know it's not precisely like that, but it often feels that way. At these times, I feel sorry for myself and others who were unfortunate enough to be placed here.
Today I reviewed with my teacher the use of the very popular and very useful English modifier fucking. The new head principal at the school has proven himself to be rather strict about something which doesn't need such tight policing, and we were voicing our displeasure about it. He asked me to express it in English.
Of particular note were fucking stupid and this fucking sucks.
There's a lesson I wouldn't mind teaching every day ...
I have over the past year been reading, with increasing irritation, the regularly-released promotional material that is produced at my school. The purpose of these pamphlets/books/etc. is to promote our school to parents and students of junior high schools. Students in Japan have a choice of which high school they may go to, as opposed to simply being relegated to whatever school is in their district.
The problem is that despite the fact that I have been here for two frickin years, they keep printing pictures of my predecessor. Perhaps they haven't figured out that there is a huge difference between the two white dudes who have been at their school, but he left years ago. It's a real nice way to be reminded that to the people designing/deciding/editing these things, I am just a faceless foreigner. Every time I see his face once more plastered across something describing their great English program, I get more annoyed. I know there are pictures of me teaching class, because God knows every 2 weeks someone is sneaking around taking pictures in classes. I know I'm not exactly the most photogenic ALT ever to grace the JET program, but come on, sadly the picture they chose for him isn't flattering either. Get with the times, people! Grr.
I am given respite in knowing that my fellow English teachers also think it's stupid, and that probably they will do this to whoever my successor is. But at times like these, you really do wonder about what kind of value you have for the people you're working with.
Following Matt's excellent post on the virtues of the World Cup, Japanese stuff, and finally the true meaning of soccer, I concede I can hardly compete. But with World Cup Fever gripping Japan and pretty much everywhere else except the States, I guess I should get swept up as well. Figures.
Last night I stayed awake longer than I should have to watch Japan's first World Cup 2006 game, against the brutish (the team members, not the people themselves) Australians. Japan had it made on a single lame-ass goal until the last 10 minutes of the game. Then they got lazy and let another lame goal happen, this time at their expense.
I remember saying "well, at least tying is better than losing."
So you see, it was my fault. Somewhere in the echoing halls of the soccer gods, someone heard me. "I can fix that!" Losra, the god of sucky teams said. She swept down with fury and smote the Japanese players with a laziness that the human race had never seen the likes of. Australia leapt upon their opportunity with vigor and pounded the living shit out of Japan. All in 10 minutes.
It's kind of amusing because Japan's hesitant, near-timid playing style got the (hopeful) kick in the ass it needed. Also because I predicted Australia would win. But honestly, I'm sorry Japan. I didn't mean to shatter your hopes and dreams like that. But you have two more games to pray through, when first the Czechs Croatians and then the Brazilians crush you utterly.
Soccer isn't nearly as boring when you imagine its every moment laid out by vengeful gods.
I went to the dentist yesterday to remove previously mentioned scary stuff on my teeth.
My first impression was "damn that's cool that you can get a next-day appointment." Back home you have to wait like 6 months! My second impression, upon walking into the actual area where you get worked on was "why are all the chairs in the same room?" It seemed kind of odd that you should be able to hear other people's shouts of agony.
They sat me down and threw what amounts to a blanket with a hole in it over my head. Only my mouth and nose stick out from it. Then they went to town.
I feel like my mouth has been raped by a set of crazed tooth gnomes.
On the bright side my mouth is clean and sparkly after a half-hour of agony, and I only paid $20 for it.
Since coming to Japan, there are things about my own body that I've had to come to grips with. Body image is a different beast here, thus forcing me to sometimes completely about-face on notions I'd carried from the States.
Let's go with the positives first.
Thanks to Japan's pop-culture obsession with "America," as a white male I enjoy an advantage I couldn't have dreamed of back home. I'm no longer run-of-the-mill but exotic, even desirable (despite my dorky appearance). Don't believe me (you should)? Just walk around Tokyo and count the number of dorky-looking-white-guy-with-amazingly-hot-Japanese girl couples. You'll be astounded.
At the gym, I and Pete happen to be two of the biggest men there. It's refreshing. Back home, I'm almost always the runt, despite how much I might work out and get muscly. 75% of the male gym population back home is always bigger. Being at the top of the pile gleans not only instant grudging respect from the other "big" guys in the gym, but it also is a nice boost to the ol' ego. Never would I have dreamed of calling myself "huge." Here, I can do it with impunity.
There are negatives.
Even back home, my most noticeable feature is not my rugged good looks (ha!) or my bulging biceps or anything like that; it's my nose. It's sharp, bloody enormous, and has funny nostrils. Even when people aren't making fun of it, secretly I know they're marvelling at it. Fast forward to Japan. Japanese people claim that they have flat noses. For the most part, it's true. Many people have a hard time wearing "wraparound" sunglasses because they simply lack the nose bridge to support such eyewear. So many Japanese people have these cute little button noses it makes me sick with envy. For some mind bogglingly stupid reason, people like "tall" noses. This is where I fit in. Remember, enormous, pointy? They love it. I can't tell me how many times I've overheard (or directly been told) exclamations to the height of my nose. I suppose they think it's a compliment, but every time I hear it I cringe and want to rip my own olfactory unit right off. "If you like it so much, let's friggin trade!" Next person who says "ooh his nose is so tall!" is gonna get pecked in the eye.
Similarly, there seems to be the perception here that Japanese people have wide/big faces. Naturally, the white model is better, meaning a small face/head is better. I remember one of the first things that was said to me when I got in the car to drive to Gyoda for the first time was "My you have a small head. Mine is so huge!" While "Oh!" was my proper response, I do remember thinking "What the fuck?" My response hasn't much changed in two years. Daily students who have seen me around comment on how small my face is. WTF, am I a pygmy or something? So basically what I'm hearing is that I has a small face with an enormous nose. Doesn't really paint a pleasant picture, does it? I always knew my head was kinda small thanks to the fact that I look like an idiot in hats (sigh), but it's getting drilled in here with unprecedented ferocity. God, why didn't you give me a bigger skull!!
Finally, there's the teeth. Here I fit in nicely because I have bunk teeth. I've always prided myself on the fact that my teeth are always very well-brushed and sparkly. But just today I noticed an alarming amount of unexplainable junk on the inside of my teeth. I still brush every day. I still use Listerine every day. I floss every other day. I don't smoke at all, and neither do I drink coffee or much cola. So what is this crap? Upon seeing it, naturally I freaked out. I absolutely must go to the dentist now, but like most foreigners, I am terrified of Japanese dentists. We are told that Japanese dentistry is at the height of technology and among the best in the world. So why do so many Japanese people have horrible teeth? I fear that I'll go to the dentist for a simple cleaning and come out with three fake teeth. Yeek.
There you have the gist of it. There are other things, and I do think things are worse here for foreign women. For now, I'll try to enjoy my status...while going to the dentist.
Today I came home from a fruitful excursion to the cell phone store (where I used my "points" to get a free battery pack) to find two pigeons humping on my veranda.
Ah, the signs of spring.
Back in elementary and middle school, I played Trombone. I wasn't very good, owing to the fact that I wasn't very dedicated. I made the mistake of mentioning that I used to play, so the music-department (or what passes for that here) director got wind of it last year and asked me to play with the band at the 3年生 (3rd year/senior students) going away thingie. I couldn't say no.
This year the dreaded trombone returns, with the same "shit I've forgotten everything and have to relearn the entire instrument in two weeks" issues as last time. But I shall prevail, like last time.
The question begs to be asked "why can't it be something cooler, like me being the DJ backup for the band or something?" The other question you might be begging to ask is "did uncoolness ever actually leave your vicinity?" Laugh it up, joker, cuz I know you're thinkin it.
I'm absolutely positive I'm not alone in my opinion that there is something wrong with drivers in Japan. Daily when we lowly foreign English teachers hop on our bikes to get to school, we bet our lives on those rickety frames. Just ask Roy who got hit and injured not just his bike, phone, and computer but also his body. Tons of people ride bikes here, which when I first got here made me think there was reason to believe that drivers would be more observant about them. Oh, how I was wrong.
There seems to be a basic problem with observation here. Drivers all over the world, of course, are in their own little worlds, but here it feels a lot worse. People tend to think that once they've hopped in their car, they don't have to worry about the little guy on the side of the road. Run him off the road (I can't tell you how many times this has happened), he's just got a bike, what can he do? I was driving the other day, stopped at an intersection and waiting to turn out into the intersection. A truck wanted to turn onto my road, so I waited. Instead of turning normally onto my street, he instead turned directly into the car I was driving. There was the whole other lane of the road, which he should have been turning into, completely clear, but instead he wanted to take the corner ridiculously tight and illegally turn into oncoming traffic. He was largely unaware, it seems, that my car was even there until we were literally a foot apart, at which point he and his wife stared at me indignantly like "why are you here?" Um ... I'm here because it's my side of the road you fuckup. I can't tell you how many times I've been a passenger to a Japanese driver and thought "oh God I'm totally gonna die." I've only been with one driver who actually appears to look carefully both ways when coming out of an intersection. Naoki is a very very good person.
I could be wrong (of course) but I think it's the insurance system here. I don't know much about it, but I'm always asking questions to try to get an idea of how it works. The basic gist is that very very rarely is fault established solely on one driver. The majority of the time, fault (and thus payment of damages) is split straight down the middle. For example, if I am driving on a main thoroughfare and some dolt pulls out from a side road and I nail him, the fault is still 50% mine. Why? I couldn't have stopped, but the law says that it was somehow in my power to avoid the accident and I didn't, so thus it's half my fault. Even if someone is driving on the wrong side of the road and causes a head-on, the victim is still 10% liable. From what I've gathered from asking a bunch of different people, it's close to impossible to establish 100% fault in an accident.
So then it makes sense why people are so careless here, especially when it comes to bicyclists or smaller cars. If you smash a cyclist, she'll end up paying for the damage her head made to your windshield. On top of that she'll probably end up paying her own medical bill, some of yours, and the fees to get rid of her mangled bike. Same goes for a small car. You clobber that thing with your brand new Toyota Monster, and you get the better end of the deal and end up penalizing someone thousands of dollars for being stupid enough to think that you were a responsible driver. The end result is that nobody cares when they drive, and it's a dangerous place out there for the rest of us.
If you have a better understanding of the insurance system here, by all means comment. But I may hunt you down and hit you with a car.
It's been a while that I've done a post not related to the redesign. So it's time to set things a-right with my readership...by delivering some random crap that'll hopefully make people laugh, cry, roll their eyes, or do something. I may even settle for scratching one's butt, though I'd hope it's in reaction to this post. Then again, maybe I'm not exactly looking for that.
Let's start off with life mistakes. Everyone has them: those mistakes that you're always thinking back upon like "why????!!" Past wrongs done, past things said, people hurt, cool mp3s deleted...that kind of thing. Today's mistake is my pants. I was at Uniqlo (for you wanna-be hipsters in the UK and US, it's all over Japan and just because it's a foreign brand does not make it any hipper than the GAP, which is exactly what it is) a while back thinking I needed a new pair of dressy pants for school. Hey, it was a sale and lo, there was a sale on dressy pants. Yes! So I tried on this pair of pants and bought them. No sweat. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking. Every time I wear these pants I cringe. I still wear them because I paid money for them and when I tried them on I must've thought there was something redeeming about them. But really. I look like one of those skinny huge-assed guys...without the ass. So in essence, I look like a 145-pound guy with the hips (and not the ass) of a pregnant woman. I think it's the pleats? Oh for the love of...why am I still wearing these things? Never.again.
Next up is the toilet in my school. I've blogged about it not long ago, but as the winter is getting even colder the daily toilet-saga is worsening. Every time I sit down now, I can't help but squeak out obscenities. It's that cold. Seriously, we're talking a seat of ice, folks. It often comes down to "can I wait until I get home to the bliss of my heated toilet seat?" Sadly, just as often the answer is "no." Damn you school lunch.
Lastly, it's the gym. I usually use the weight room at school because well...it's free. It's also unheated and thus gets rather cold in the winter. Lifting heavy objects made of metal while it's 33 degrees isn't a good idea. So I sucked it up and started paying 6300円 (about 60 bucks) a month to go to the gym after 8:30PM only on weeknights. Wow what a bargain. Anyway, my gym experience has been enlightening. (Disclaimer: before you crucify me for being a chauvanist pig, read to the end puhleeze) For one, I have, and never again will, see so many women over 40 with 25-year-old bodies. It's a very strong testament to what western women might look like if they didn't so often blimp out. It's also, unfortunately, a testament to the ridiculous starvation dieting that women do here. Men in Japan enjoy the same sexist benefits of being able to blimp out with much less negative impact, though far fewer men here seem to do so. Witness the 50 year old PTA guy with the 30 year old body. Then there's "ol' meathead." I was under the (largely confirmed until I went to a club with Roy) impression that Japanese men didn't get very hugely muscular. Then I came to the gym and saw meathead. He's just like every other huge gym dude you've seen. His neck is bigger around than my legs, and he has bigger manboobs than most women. He goes around the gym helping all of the lesser humans get their workout right, thus benefitting from everyone thinking he's the man of the gym. Really it just comes down to the fact that I'm seething with jealousy. I'm 110% sure that there will never be a time in my life when I will be called a meathead. I mean, wouldn't it be cool just to know that someone is thinking "dayum that guy is built?" Maybe not, actually, but I do prefer that to the alternative "li'l twig" that seems to be a far more accurate descriptor for yours truly. Awwww.
On a daily basis I contend with a herculean "Dangerous Minds" (I'm sure there's a better movie/book example but I'm drawing a blank now) complex that I seem to have developed. I keep thinking that somehow, someway, there's a way to "get through" to these kids (especially the technical school ones) and get them to like English.
I keep thinking that if only I can plan out that magical lesson where suddenly English is no longer boring, lame, and a time to chat with your friends but interesting and a skill that really could be useful in the future. I know I'm not a crappy teacher. Perhaps if I'm more of a friend to them and less of a teacher? No, that just gets them asking sex questions. How about games? Even more boring than rote memorization, apparently. Even the blatant bribery bit ( that JET people constantly warn should only be used in last-ditch scenarios) flopped.
I can feel my disillusionment growing every new week. Every new cool lesson planned out only to be chewed up and spit out (sometimes literally) in moments, every hour spent trying to "friendify" them into trying some English ... I feel my desire to try slipping away. Soon enough I'll be one of the teachers who just go straight from the book. After all, if the students don't like anything creative, why not make the work easier on myself and at least use materials that are already prepared?
It doesn't have to be this way ... doesn't, doesn't, doesn't ...
EDIT: In pondering this during my daily lunch walk, I realized it really doesn't have to be this way: the reality is that I'm really not here to be a teacher at all, but a "cultural ambassador" (read: foreign one-man freakshow the kids can stare at) whose foreign ways will hopefully incite someone somewhere in Japan to be more interested in Internationalization. That being said, I feel a tiny bit better about my moribund classes.
Yesterday I was looking at this stuff called "miracle clear" or something like that. It promised to erase the ever-increasing age- and stress-induced bags under my eyes. Japanese skin care products have a reputation for being excellent and also extremely varied, so I thought it really was some rejuvenating magical stuff that would make my face younger ... or something. I shelled out my money in haste.
It turned out to be makeup.
Living as a foreigner in Japan, you may be tempted to start to see yourself as something rather special. Maybe you think you're better looking, somehow, than you were before. Maybe you think you are so smart because you've only been living here for a year and people just keep telling you your Japanese is awesome. Maybe you think people ask you so many questions because they're truly interested in you.
In an effort (okay I admit it doesn't take much effort at all) to banish such thoughts and more, I simply remind myself that none of them are remotely true. To the majority of the people you meet, you are little more than a passing feature at the Ueno Zoo, something to marvel and point at for a short period of time before the next attraction draws attention. As a foreign English teacher in a public school, you certainly are little more than one more in a long line of continually-changing foreigners. How memorable are you really when people who have seen you daily for two years keep calling you by the last guy's name? Even to your Japanese friends, it is quite possible that a good part of the reason they are your friends is that you are foreign and even somewhat of a "friend trophy."
If you are one of the lucky ones to have command of the language enough to have a decent conversation, you haven't escaped. You definitely have a "specialness" advantage, but as I've heard Roy put it, you're just a talking monkey now instead of a mute one. Nevertheless I envy you horribly. Oh, to impress upon the people I talk to that I do have feelings and a personality to boot! The jury's still out on whether or not that actually works.
People are not looking at you because you're a hot dude(ss). They often have little desire to find out more about you beyond the "weird things" about your home country. They might even use you to the extent that you don't understand the way things work here. Like it or not, as truly special (or not) as you may be, you're still just a passing fancy. Consider yourself the "summer fling" if you will. Welcome to the ever-changing, always-the-same 外人 (gaijin: not-so-nice word for foreigner) roadshow.
This grounding (and bitter, I apologize for that) moment brought to you by shock-e.com
The boneheads in charge of IT at the prefecture level (all high schools in Japan are controlled by their prefectural governmental ministry) run a content filtering app that I am constantly bumping into. Daily you can hear my curses when I'm (usually) trying to find something useful and run into this thing. The things that they do to "protect" the kids from the world, in the end, only manage to make school less educational and more ridiculous. Last time I was trying to find Halloween games to play with my English club. I was blocked from every page because the word "game" was included in the page. No games allowed in school! Enjoying even a moment of your class makes you weak and stupid!
Today I was looking up more about Nanking/Nanjing in thinking about a response I wrote earlier to Roy's comment. Apparently history is also a banned category!
Okay I kinda get censoring the violence part, but history? What the fuck?
This morning I had a (quite base) thought whilst 90% asleep:
If "blow job" and "hand job" each describe a sexual activity, just imagine what a "nose job" must be ...
Yeah I know, I don't want to know either why I was thinking this at 7AM.
Again...and again! I lost arm wrestling matches three more times, to two separate students. The second one is a rather small student, definitely smaller than me. So what gives? My wrist hurts so much now I have trouble typing. But I had to redeem myself ... instead losing what little dignity remained.
On the bright side, I'm told it's not my brute strength that's lacking but instead, it's just that I have sucky technique.
Whoever thought arm wrestling involved technique?
Let me tell you a little bit about bugs. Specifically, let me tell you about the differences between American Mosquitos and Japanese Mosquitos.
Prior to coming to Japan, I had assumed that if another country had Mosquitos, they would be the same as they are back home; dumb, slow, annoying, and ubiquitous. What I have learned after spending two summers battling them is that they are quite different here, and I can only assume other countries have some other evil Mosquito strains.
The only things Japanese Mosquitos (hereby referred to as Ms because I'm getting sick of writing "Mosquito") share with American Ms are ubiquity and irritation. They are indeed everywhere. And they kind of look alike. But Japanese Ms seem to have these fuzzy antennae things that American ones don't, and there's also a separate kind that is black-and-grey striped. Neither are dumb or slow.
Back home, you can easily nab an M out of the air with one hand. Mashing one against the wall is a cakewalk. Here, it's damn hard. I think they're smaller and they're definitely faster here. It's so easy to lose sight of them, and the moment you've done so, they're probably sucking your sweet sweet red nectah (blood). Just the other night, one woke me up by buzzing in my ear (something they rarely do, actually), and I spent the next 45 minutes trying to kill it. Several times I tried to go back to sleep, only to have it bite me on some new and inconvenient bodily location.
And let me talk about that for a moment. Back home, when they bite they get full and slow and leave you alone. Here, it's like they've been invited to an endless buffet. They keep coming back for more and never seem to give up. A single M has bitten me like 5 times in as many minutes. And their bites itch like hell. I theorize it's because my body is used to American M bites and can deal more easily with the hystamines in their pokers.
It all comes down to using these electric M machines that only sometimes work, and waiting out the end of the season. Winter ain't great, but I'll be spared spending whole evenings stalking about the room singing "Where are you, you little fuckeerrrr? I'm gonna killlll you!"
Lately, I seem to be waging a war against nature (or some semblance of it). Not like I have anything against it, I mean I was a "tree-hugger Environmental Science" major. But man, sometimes ...
Last night I was awoken at midnight by what I thought was my neighbors doing major renovations on their house right next to my bedroom window. It took me a little while to figure out that it was a cicada doing it's "whirp whirp whiiiiiiiiiirp" thing ... in the middle of the night. While not unheard of, it is kind of strange and especially loud and disturbing when the nasty insect has attached itself to your window screen to do its little "hump-hump-hump-meeeeeeee" call. So I did what anyone would do: I flicked it. Poor thing bounced around against the outside light for a good 15 minutes before getting the point that it indeed was night and time to sleep.
Two nights before that, I had the most horrifying dreams. I was dismembered, burned alive in lava ... all while waiting for some sort of rescue helicopter that never showed up. The inspiration for such horror, it turns out, was a cat in heat prowling around on my balcony. You have to understand that cats never come up there, so an especially adventurous and horny one at 3AM was disconcerting. Combine this with the fact that I had been awoken by yowling and was just a tad out of it ... well I was terrified. I really had to go to the bathroom but the bathroom has a window overlooking the balcony and I was convinced the cat would try to get me. I held my pee-break until morning. I've been instilled with plenty of Hmong spiritual legendry so in that half-sleeping state I was utterly sure that the cat was bringing ill-will (which is what they do in Hmong belief apparently).
It all turned out fine in the end ... or so I thought. I giggled about it the next day, went to school, and came back. It was then that I discovered the little weenie had chowed on my carefully-tended mint plants.
Damn you nature!
Sometimes I get so bored, I want to rot my brain and watch TV rather than do something productive with my life (write stories, study Japanese, pick my nose). Really, watching TV is one of the last things I should be doing, but I sometimes just can't help but plop down on the ol' yellow fake leather sofa and turn on the tube.
Every time, I'm so disgusted with the horrible quality of the fare that I turn it right back off.
The other night was no exception. We were watching a Japanese game show in which the contestants do various things to show their smarts about animal hijinks. The bone I have to pick with Japanese TV production is 100% my own problem and obviously cultural so don't get all up on me for being insensitive or generalizing or whatever.
The problem with Japanese TV production is the lack of "normal" people. Anyone who is on any show or advertisement pretty much must be famous. Sometimes we see segments of variety shows (whose guests are solely famous people) with normal people on it, but those normal people have to be doing something relatively out-of-the-ordinary to get on the segment in the first place. So here we have, as Pete has put it, a whole variety of TV shows that all feature the same guests. It's like you're only allowed to see the same 15 people on TV during any one season.
What gets me going is already-famous and already-rich people winning more crap and privilege. Anyone who knows me knows I have a huge beef against undeserved fame/fortune/privilege (think Paris Hilton). So back to the animal show. I was watching these celebrities pitted against each other to test their critter mettle. Finally one guy won, and guess what? He won some crazy crystal stuff, and a trip to Bali, and a ton of food ... just like "normal" people can win on American game shows. As if this rich guy can't already afford a million of those crystals and trips and foodstuffs. As if he needs more crap and ego-injections.
It all comes down to, as I was told, a lack of charitable feelings amongst the Japanese which is largely attributed to Christianity (again this is something I was told so don't get all up on my shit for it). Am I to believe there's no charitable spirit in this country? Where people, who are much poorer than the very celebrities they watch, are forced to watch said celebrities get even richer because normal people are pretty much not allowed on TV? I didn't watch much TV back home, but my experience was that if a celebrity were on a game show where (s)he could win stuff, those winnings would go to charity. Here, they go straight to an already-rich person's coffers.
Not to say that there aren't truly-educational or interesting shows on Japanese TV, but they are pretty rare (much like American TV). But I tire of seeing the same 10 or 15 people making the same jokes for days on end. It's with this disgust that I click the power button.
Whatever happened to quality programming like Takeshi's Castle!!
This morning, like any other morning, Maki spent two hours on the train to get to her job in Tokyo. Unlike any other day in her adult working life, she forgot her ID badge to get into her job at NTT Communications. When she got there, she was unable to enter the building. Completely blocked. They sent her home to get her ID badge to get into a job she already dislikes. So by 10:30 this morning, she had already spent six hours on the train. Today she will have spent eight hours total on the train for a job where she is treated as an OL (short for "Office Lady" which basically means sits around, looks pretty, and serves the oh-so-important men tea and coffee when they yell). All just to get into the building.
The company is no missile-defense contractor. It's an offshoot of the old government telecom that handles some sort of data infrastructure that no one really cares about. What boggles my mind is that the bureaucracy is so heavy at this company that there's not even anything like a sign-in sheet or visitor ID badge she could borrow for the day. The people in security know who she is, they've seen her face every day for the past two years. Yet here is one more example of how adhering to (however stupid it is) the system is more important than being kind for someone. Were I in her shoes and told I have to hike two hours back home and then two hours back for a simple ID badge, you all know I'd tell them to fuck off. No mediocre job is worth that. I guess that's the difference between us!
Of all the boneheaded things I've heard about this company, it's a wonder they have any business at all.
I don't get it. Why do people idolize celebrities? What genetic reason is there for being a brainless sheep? What is the point of talking about how attractive someone is or how great they are or giving a shit at all because they are rich and famous? First, this person has, and always will have, no bearing on the average person's life. Second, fame and fortune do not at all add up to a better person. Yet why does it seem to me that such a small percentage of the general population understands this? I mean, come on. Excuse my venom, but who fucking cares if Brad Pitt goes to the hospital? I went to the hospital two weeks ago with so-called "flu-like symptoms" and the BBC didn't pick that up. Neither do they pick up that every day thousands of poeople in Africa die of AIDS. I'm pretty sure in those thousands, every day there are people dying with more talent and potential than Brad Pitt. Yet he is famous! So we must obsess! Damned be the people who are truly suffering!
I see those supermarket gossip rags and I want to puke. Why the hell do people care who Angelina "Lips of Collagen" Jokie is fucking this week? Housewives, quit trying to catch up on Catherine Zeta Jones' sex life and maybe check out why your husband is so busy every week.
Gah. Yeah, there are plenty of famous people out there who genuinely deserve praise. But that doesn't mean they need legions of blubbering idiots who would rather take their own lives than see their idol in trouble. I watched a news item here in Japan about some shitty-punk (yes, I truly believe that's a viable genre title for the style of music that virtually all teenagers are listening to) star who choked on his own vomit after an OD or some other such nonsense. The footage showed his funeral limosine surrounded by wailing teenagers, who were pretty much flagellating themselves in despair. What the hell. He was a person, not some God. These people react more to some dumbass in ripped jeans and crappy hair than they would if their own parents died.
This world is a disgusting, backwards place.
/rant
Mind you, I was in a perfectly chipper mood until someone thought it was newsworthy to write about Brad Pitt's fever. Oy ...
Like Roy, I also have a crappy teacher situation. Today, for the first time after a year of teaching with him, I decided upon a name: Douchebag-Sensei.
Yes, it's similar to Roy's Dipshit-Sensei but hey, inspired by his brilliant use of dipshit, I came up with "Dipshit-Sensei" anyway. They mean virtually the same thing in my book, but you know ... we can't be eating the same dish (so to speak).
Douchebag-Sensei has actually managed to garner a reputation amongst Saitama highschool teachers as being the least likely teacher to give a shit about teaching. Even before he taught at the current low-level technical school, he taught just as badly at a decent school .
What gets to me is that his shitty attitude affects the students (naturally). Sure, most of them don't give a damn about English anyway, and I don't expect them to. But the teacher's role as I see it is to nurture what interest there might be. If a student asks a question during an activity or shows any interest at all, I'll do my best to work with it. DB-Sensei (acronym usage definitely ripped from Roy) quashes it. Today a student was talking to both of us about the current activity. He was obviously interested in learning more about the usage of the target sentence and its alternatives. Instead of trying to work with this interest, DB pretty much said "yep that's how it works," turned away, and went back to sleeping standing up. I tried to work with the student more, but my bad Japanese rapidly became a barrier to further learning.
If only I could design my own activities for the students instead of using the world's worst English textbook. Every time I suggest an activity, without fail he'll very evasively (which is what passes for politely here) nix anything interesting. And we go back to reading from the world's worst English textbook.
To top it off, Douchebag isn't going anywhere soon, as I have the feeling that his poor performance at previous schools is the very reason he's been placed at a low-level school.
If anything, it's one more reason to study Japanese more.
Every day I try to go down to my school's dingy (but happily free, in a country of very expensive memberships) weight room to train. I've been getting pudgy, you see. Since the room is locked, I have to make my way to the smoke-filled gym-teachers' room (I hope the irony is not lost on you) and retrieve the key. It usually goes without a hitch. Today also went without a hitch, but for a nagging doubt that suddenly took hold of me. I realized that every time I go in there, I get these mysterious weird half-looks. What do I mean by that? I don't really know. All I know is I feel dreadfully appraised ... not necessarily in a good way.
It got me to thinking about my time here. I realized I'm navigating through a world that (despite my time here and my apparent cultural learning) I know nothing about. I'm steadily learning my way around cultural blunders and such, but for the most part the Japanese people remain a mystery.
Japanese people are known (though I was unaware of this before coming) for being rather inexpressive. I, on the other hand, am highly expressive. My face, I guess, is like a little TV monitor showing pretty much exactly what I'm feeling. It makes for a rather shitty poker player. Regardless, because of this fundamental difference in expression, I realized today that I really have no idea what many people think about me. The people I work with are very nice, helpful, and fun, but at the same time it's rather impossible to figure out what they think. Back home, you can pretty easily tell if someone doesn't like you; (s)he'll be a complete asshole to you. Usually workplace civility is maintained, but nothing more than that. If it's out of the workplace, obvious dislike is perfectly fair game. Here, even if people hate each others' guts, they'll be, for the most part, painfully polite. I think it may be part of the uber-pacifistic nature that Japan has adopted since World War II.
And so I wonder what people are thinking when I say or do something. Are they saying "boy he is a funny guy, this ジャスティン character" or are they saying "what a dumbass ... when's the next teacher coming?" In all, it shouldn't matter. Most people say just to ignore what other people think about you and go about doing your own thing. I can't really do that. I rely heavily on the opinions of others, as I not only want to think the best of people but also I want them to think the best of me. I also want to know if I'm doing my job well. After all, I am here to do a job. As a westerner, I have been trained to read facial and body language, which is pretty minimal here. So what to do? Obviously, keep trying to learn about other (if any) ways Japanese people express themselves. But in the meantime, I find myself rather, as I said, paranoid.
You think you're a nice person and that people like you; but to realize suddenly that you can't really feel sure is distressing. It's kind of like having the floor whipped out from under you, with empty space beneath.
People like me, right? Hmm.
Note: That was just a musing, rhetorical question, for all you sassy folk.
In follow up to a previous post,
The Most Pointless Spam, I give you part two.
The other day I got barraged with yet another nifty tagline that should just send so much traffic to whatever site is spamming me. All the comment spam contained was a link for "www.chineseapesattack.com" and "www.chineseapesattack2.com" (Note: don't bother going to those sites, they don't actually exist).
WTF?
This admittedly isn't as stupid as spamming for puppets or staples, but come on. Chinese apes attack?
Out of curiosity I went to the other link listed in the spam, just to see who was stupid enough to hire this spammer. Turns out it's some rinkydink antique store in upstate New York. A word of advice to you idiots at "Yellow Monkey" antiques: spamming does not make people want to buy your useless junk. In fact, all it makes me personally want to do is fill your inbox with obscenities ... and possibly sign you up on some heinous spam list.
Seeing as their website looks like shit (along with their "merchandise"), I can't imagine mom and pop "Yellow Monkey" could figure out how to get rid of any spam they suddenly started receiving ...
Recently (today, in fact) I finally figured out the kanji for "low fat" in regards to milk (低脂 in case you were wondering). This is an incredible boon to me. I prefer low fat milk, especially in Japan since milk is much less pasteurized and therefore stinky and rather thick.
Until now, I had only been able to buy one brand in my town, the only one that said "Low Fat Milk" on the package. But today I made a major reading breakthrough and figured out how to remember the kanji for it. Now I have multiple (read: two ... sometimes) choices!
Then I made a heinous discovery.
As you may have guessed by the title of this post, I discovered that the milk with English on it is just about twice as expensive as the all-japanese milk. I'm trying to justify it by thinking that possibly just one brand is much more expensive than the other, or imported from, say, the moon. Since virtually all milk in Japan comes from Hokkaido, transport costs shouldn't factor into the more-than-100-yen price difference. My conspiracy-theorist half tells me that it's just a simple demonstration of foreigners getting ripped off for ignorance. After all, that extra dollar for the English-equipped milk is paying for the convenience of not having to learn kanji! Even factoring in that convenience, the expense of the "English" milk borders on highway robbery.
I guess it makes sense ... but it still pisses me off. Anyone else see something like that?
In follow-up to my previous story I Think I'm Turning Japanese, I think it's time to write about how I will never ever ever be very Japanese. Current (and some permanent) indications:
- I will never, repeat, never prefer a squat toilet over a western toilet, provided that said western toilet is not covered in poop.
- I still can't sit on my knees or cross-legged for longer than 5 minutes without causing myself severe pain. If you want to see what Justin will look like as an old man, just watch him try to get up after sitting for a half hour in a Ramen shop. Ohhhh my baaack.
- I despise Japanese consumer practices. "Shouganai" (It can't be helped) is most certainly not good enough if I bought something that sucks and I want to return it. Jesus, what kind of capitalists are you people, anyway?
- I equally despise Japanese television. It doesn't even qualify as "entertainment" in my book.
- I have not learned to appreciate the fine subtleties of Japanese beer. For instance, I cannot understand why something that tastes more flavorful than Bud Light (but in a bad way) is considered good.
- I need a Japanese person to translate for me ... when I'm speaking Japanese.
- I don't, and never will, understand rape/bondage fantasy. Nor do I have the overwhelming (or any at all) urge to steal panties hung out in the laundry.
- I am well aware that not every man, woman, and child in the US owns a gun. I am also aware that a foray into New York City does not necessarily equate to a death sentence.
- I can easily recognize who, in the foreigner population, is butt ugly. Very attractive Japanese women are apparently the least gifted with this "skill."
That's it for now. Both of these lists, however, have quite the potential for mass expansion ... especially since I've already thought up additions for each.
You knew it would happen sometime. Every Japan blogger in the universe has used that cheesy song (whatever it was) at some point.
Current indications:
- I talk to myself about the weather. Repeating the word "寒い" (cold) as quickly and as many times as possible in one breath is somehow meant to clarify a fact that everyone already knows.
- I begin to wonder when the train is more than a minute late. In Boston, there is no such thing even as a schedule. The train comes "when it comes."
- Heated toilet seats have become not a luxury but a fact of life.
- For me a meal without rice is not, in fact, a meal at all.
- Saying "no thank you" is an exercise in extreme confusion by both parties.
- I can bow while walking, running, biking, and talking on the phone.
- Ramen is not a $0.15 grocery store item for college students ... it's a delectable feast.
- I know myself as Jiya-soo-teen Na-row-kee (ジャスティンナロキ) rather than Justin Nawrocki.
- I have learned the term "アメ車" (amesha) and use it with glee. It is a shortening of "amerikasha" which means "american car" which in turn is slang for "sucky and inefficient."
- I see other foreigners on the train and can't help but stare.
As promised, I have compiled a (very much working) list of things I miss about home, things I don't miss about home, and things I like about Japan. Chances are these lists mirror those of many a gaijin in Japan, but hey, maybe I'll manage to strike some sort of original opinion ...
Things I Miss About Home
- Milk that doesn't taste weird and cost a gajillion yen
- Hoob. Oddly, in absence of this, I am not losing weight as expected.
- Beer that is not only fairly priced but doesn't taste like ass. In Japan, the words "Beer" and "Urine" are relatively synonymous. In the states, "Anheuser-Busch," "Coors," and "Miller" are similar, but we have this wonderful thing called "other beer" that doesn't suck. Ahhhh.
- My family and friends (duh).
- Cilantro. It's almost impossible to find unless you're willing to trek to Tokyo, and then it costs a fortune. I miss it so much I plan on "growing my own."
- English. Oh, to be able to navigate in a world without botching everything I want to say.
- Vegetables of earthly origin. I swear some of the vegetables here look like alien lifeforms. Witness the warty cucumber thing. As per usual, anything remotely western should be paid in gold bricks. I paid $1.50 for a single lime the other day. Sigh.
- Tonic Water in large quantity. $1.10 for 10 oz. is highway robbery. How come I can get Bombay Sapphire for $5.00 less than in the States? Because buying tonic more than makes up for the difference.
- Doritos. Oh good god, why didn't I think of this sooner?
- Insulation! Roy once said "someone needs to inform the Japanese about home insulation," and I can't agree more. The Japanese claim that they don't insulate because the "houses are made for summer" which is an enormous, stinky lie. If you put insulation in your walls, not only would we actually be warm in the winter, but the cool air from your air conditioners would actually stay in the house during the summer! Huzzah! Progress! Oh wait, that was just fantasy. In truth, every night I freeze my ass off whilst cowering in front of my kerosene "stove."
- Toilets. After being unfortunately forced to use a squat toilet not long ago, my belief was confirmed (as if it was ever in doubt) that this is one of the worst methods of pooping ever conceived. I long for the days when it was a sure thing you got a sit-toilet when you walked into a bathroom.
- Snow.
Things I Do Not Miss About Home
- Boston Frat Boys. "Dude I'm so wasted! Check out her tits! WOOOOOO!!!!" (Throws garbage cans into street)
- George W. Bush. Sadly, I cannot escape seeing his monkey-mug fairly often on TV. But I can easily avoid watching the TV (since Japanese TV is the most mind-numbingly terrible form of "entertainment" ever to face humanity) and thereby avoid reminding myself that Americans are stupid enough to re-elect him. Which brings us to the next topic ...
- Stupid, Fat, Rude Americans. There certainly are all three here, but nowhere on earth has such a high concentration of said people as in "the good ol' U S of A" (uttered with a generous dallop of midly-retarded sounding Texas twang with slide-guitar accompaniment). I mean, who else would be stupid enough to sue McDonald's for making them fat? Keep in mind, most of these people are (thankfully) concentrated in Texas. That's why we should transplant Austin and reduce the rest of the "great nation" to rubble.
- SUVs and enormous "luxury trucks." Who the hell needs 2 tons of fatass comfort anyway? Buy a damn car and save some gas and relinquish some of the road to the rest of us, you arrogant, lazy asshole.
- Snow. Yeah. Love/Hate relationship with the fluffy white stuff. As should anyone who has to shovel it often.
- Femi(nazi)ism. Hehe. Let the flames roll in. I don't miss at all being told all men are pigs/slobs/womanizers, etc. etc. Perhaps outspoken man-bashers should take a gander at what it's like to live in a real patriarchal society. On the other side of the table, I do definitely miss the idea that women should be able to get a job, live alone, etc. etc. etc.
- Being 3 years behind. The U.S. is perpetually 6 months to 3 years behind the rest of the world in pretty much everything, from fashion to technology. Granted Japanese fashoin is perpetually stuck in the 80's, but no doubt stuff I'm seeing here now will be reaching the States by the time I get home. The phones we have here now won't reach the States until I'm 30 years old. By then, the phones in Japan (given their penchant for weird sexual gadgetry) will probably give head.
Things I Like/Love About Japan
- Gadgets. I love all the little electronic doodads and stuff here. Granted you can get most of it back in the states, but there are some things that you can only get here. Cell phones are one of them. Laptops with screens that don't suck is another. Don't forget Hello Kitty vibrators.
- Onsen. It's sometimes a little weird to be hanging out in a big outdoor rock garden/bathtub with a bunch of naked men. It's even weirder if some of said naked men are your friends and/or sister's fiance. Triply weird if, since you're white or associated with a white dude, inevitably someone wants to talk to you (whilst, of course, booty naked) and/or check out the size of your member. No exaggeration, by the way. Anyway, I stray from the point. The reason I love Onsen is not because of naked men. They are just so damn cool and comfortable and you want to lounge around forever. Provided, that is, you aren't lounging in the ass-zapper, which is one of the most painful things I have ever experienced.
- Lack of SUVs. Almost everyone here has a midget car and likes it. I like it too. It was with one of these cars that I ran over a baby monkey in Nikko ... and it lived. SUV? Baby monkey bye bye. Then again, they have such high clearance, maybe the monkey would've escaped completely unscathed.
- Tokyo. What isn't there to like about the coolest city in the world? London and New York ain't nuthin. Aside from the fact that it's enormous, difficult to get to, and due for a disastrous earthquake/tsunami in the next 30 years, how can one complain?
- Culture. What America has none of, Japan is rich in. Amazingly, Japan actually has history that stretches past 200 years ago! Imagine that. As a result, we can go anywhere and see something that's hundreds of years old, stunning, serene, yadda yadda. My favorite tourist game is to find the shrines and temples where there aren't hordes of other tourists. It's difficult sometimes but very rewarding.
Well that about wraps up this list. There are probably a dozen other things I could add to each list, but it's getting a little long, isn't it? Time to move on to another topic methinks. Remind me if I missed something!
Today (and in other recent days) I have been reminded just how much I dislike Christmas music. Hearing it in a chipper female Japanese voice doesn't help things. Nor does the Japanese language do much justice to an already awful musical genre.
Maybe I sound like Scrooge McDuck (love the Disney stereotype, by the way, that the Scots are cheapskates. I have no idea where they thought that one up.), but really, the only Christmas music I actually enjoy or even tolerate is The Nutcracker Suite. Maybe it's because there aren't any annoying words.
Christmas music wouldn't be so bad if if weren't for a few things:
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Simple, campy lyrics and jingly melodies that get stuck in your brain for days.
Heinous overplay in any place of commerce starting sometime in mid-November.
Every pop artist since the conception of Chrismas music trying to remake a tired old crappy song into something "Fresh." I tell you, just because Christina Aguilera shakes her slutty ass on camera while singing Rudolph The Rednosed Reindeer and wearing next to nothing doesn't mean that it's a new song. It's still the same bad song with a new underdressed singer.
Overbearing, inescapable preachiness. I tolerate "holiday" or "seasonal" songs much more (even if they also suck) simply because they don't cram Christmas cheer and religious/Santa propoganda down my throat. If I were of a culture that didn't celebrate Christmas, I think I would stock up on food and supplies in October and never leave my home from November 10 until probably December 29 or so. I guess technically I am Christian, at least, most of it doesn't outwardly offend me, and even I hate all the crap I am exposed to every year. I can only imagine what it must feel like to be of another religion or culture that doesn't buy into the capitalist feeding frenzy we now call Christmas.
Plain ol' suckiness. Let's face it. Christmas songs were never known for being particularly creative or inspiring. They are simplistic jingles at best, downright grating at worst. I want to punch those fucking singing Christmas trees. Yeah I'll show you naughty and nice.
I guess it comes down to the fact that I just don't like Christmas music and never will. Once in a while (say, hearing each of the songs once a year...on Christmas) is okay, but continuously makes me want to drill my eardrums out. Being in Japan at this time makes it even worse, considering that the "family time and values" I personally associate with Christmas means nothing during "Japanese Christmas." Like many things in Japan, it's just an excuse to shop.
This year, I know for sure the only place I want to be hearing Christmas music is on Christmas Eve decorating the tree with my family. That will always be the only time I will enjoy Christmas music.
Until then, Rudolph and Rock n' Roll Santa can shove it. Bah humbug!
Last night I was gently reminded by a fellow JET that I need to get my ass in gear and produce some writing on this painfully overlooked page. Thusly, I bring to you my thoughts on Japan, as seen from four (is it five yet?) months into my adventure.
Let me expound on the virtues (or lack thereof) of the wonderful bathroom mystery known as the squat toilet. Basically it's a hole in the ground with a hood and some sort of porcelain trough into which you do your business. Why is it a mystery, you ask? Well, the mystery is actually twofold:
- First, after having used these nefarious devices perhaps four times I only then discovered that I was facing the wrong way. "Face the hooded part!" I was finally told. Not that facing in the other direction made it any easier to take a crap. The problem is lack of hand rails. While I'm taking a dump, I really don't want to be making effort just to squat there. This is why Western toilets are a million times better. Western people, it seems, are inherently lazier and therefore invented a much better system for taking a shit. "It already takes effort (sometimes)" it seems that they said, "so why should we make it any harder?" Amen. In being here, I have noticed that all the schoolgirls with hiked up skirts (and no I'm not specifically looking so shaddap) have insanely beefy legs. We're talking softball/soccer/karate legs. These legs should be on women probably weighing 20 more pounds. This has been a mystery to me for a while, until I realized that it is probably from using these ridiculous squat toilets. Considering that every time a woman needs to "heed the call of nature" she needs to use the medieval torture device/squat toilet, it's like she's doing two-to-five-minute squats every hour. No wonder they have enormous quads.
- The second part of the mystery lies in motivation. Why the hell would anyone choose this sort of torture over the much more convenient Western toilets? At first I thought it was because there are usually less Western toilets available. But time and time again I have unfortunately witnessed men heading straight for the squatter. God knows why, because the position of the body and the distance from the "receptacle's" surface makes for some heinous bathroom sound effects. I, for one, will only use the evil squat device if it is absolutely necessary. I will gladly wait, if possible, until I can experience the luxury of the Western toilet. Add on a heated seat, which is available in most decent public restrooms (barring my school and the train stations), and you have a winner in my book. Go ahead guys, keep fooling yourselves that you're keeping Japanese tradition alive. Big quads are for sissies anyway!
Related is what I like to term the "smells like Japan" phenomenon. Peter recently mentioned that as a child, when he smelled a particular odor back home in the states, he would mention to his Japanese mother "it smells like Japan!" What he meant to say was "it smells like raw sewage!"
Being that I lived in Boston, I got fairly used to smelling something very stank every once in a while. New Yorkers are surely used to smelling it almost everywhere (especially after the entire city crapped itself when the Red Sox completely schooled their baseball team ... suckers), since every time I visit I tend to smell it more than in Boston. Outside of the cities, though, I rarely smell such a thing in the States. As a result, I tend to associate that terrible smell with urban centers. No longer. It seems that no matter where you are in Japan, you will smell it. Oh is it often, too. Somehow, it almost always seems to waft into my (huge and therefore extremely sensitive) nostrils right before I want to eat, thereby ruining any appetite I may have had. Even in the middle of a small town in the countryside you can smell it. It's not like there's rivers of sewage running through the streets here! I'm talking here about the world's most technologically-advanced society, and it still smells like shit. This bodes ill for futuristic fantasies about poop smelling like roses. Being that this is Japan, I expected that there might be some sort of feces-zapping invention by now, but alas, they are concentrating on more important things like high-tech vibrators and mirror-cellphones.
Of course there are many cool things about Japan that I haven't yet mentioned, but they are most likely much less amusing to read (and write) about. Can one really make it funny to read about the karaoke cell phone? I don't think so.
Until next time ... keep squattin'
In my less-than-a-year (or has it been more?) of mastering this little tiny section of the web known as shock-e.com, I have come to realize that the evil of spam extends far beyond the realm of simple email. Every day, my blogging program sends me notifications of new comments posted on my site. Inevitably, seeing as my site isn't precisely of CNN-traffic proportions, the only comments left on my site are spam comments. What are spam comments, you ask? Well you know, spam is all that junk mail you get everyday about enlarging your (possibly nonexistent) penis or making it hard for 36 days straight or whatever. Comment spam, therefore, is that kind of bullshit left in the comment boxes on my website.
I direct you to this entry on my site for an example of probably the dumbest spam I have ever seen. Go to the comments section (you click on "Comments") and behold the stupidity lurking within.
Okay, in all the years I have dealt with spam, I have become accustomed to the standard fare of spam: penis enlargment, penis enhancement, penis exercises, penis anything-else, "huge cum-covered tit" (yes I found this earlier today on my site) and so on. Last week, a spam came through my site for puppets. Yes. Puppets. I was sure that it was the most ridiculous thing I would ever see someone trying to sell through spam on the internet. I mean, who the hell buys puppets anyway, much less through internet spam? Gee, genius, you sure are reaching out to the puppeteer and mime crowd by spamming my website. It goes to show that the dummy "robot" programs designed to scour the web and leave this crap have a long way to go in the Artificial Intelligence department.
But last night. Oh, last night. It couldn't possibly get worse than puppets, could it? Oh, but it could! One thing I have learned about the internet: there is always something worse out there. Well this time it was staples. Staples? Staples?? Oh my God what will they think of next? Surely my three readers are going to absolutely flock to the spammed staple store to get the cheapest staples imaginable. Surely everybody needs staples!!! God. This makes me think of the "good old days" which according to Pete only lasted a few hours. It was a time when the Internet wasn't populated by absolute morons and by association therefore didn't suck. But those days are long past, and I sound like a seventy-year-old man griping about how he used to get to school (three feet of snow uphill both ways, eh?).
For posterity, I'm going to leave this ridiculous staple comment up. I have to go and delete the ten other identical comments left about staples. Oh and don't forget ... cheap staples (and huge cum-covered tits, if that's what you're into) for all!
Update: It looks like I got overzealous sometime during an orgy of spam-deletion and deleted the staple spam. Oh well.
This is it people, what we all knew was coming: the sad sad sad turn of events that confirms that once and for all the middle of the US is full of absolute morons. As I said before, sure it's okay that "President" Bush lies about Iraq and thousands of Iraqis and Americans are killed, but God forbid Clinton lies about getting his nut off with an ugly intern. It all comes down to this; I hate Republicans. They are the scourge of the Earth. I always say to my friends, it takes three things to be a republican: selfish, rich, and stupid. Look at college campuses all over the country. Who were college professors voting for? Not Bush, I'll tell you that much.
Yes, I am disappointed. Yes, I am bitter. I would even say I am heartbroken. I find myself this morning in deep, deep depression. I can't even imagine what the next four years will bring, without any re-election fears holding Bush back from doing some truly awful things. I'm no longer afraid to say I hate what America has become and at this point in time I want nothing to do with it. Why would I want to be associated with the same cretins as who ignored all intelligent thought and blindly voted for he who is slowly edging the world closer to chaos and ruin? What little patriotism I had after four years of agony with Bush has completely been washed away by a tide of human stupidity.
I can only imagine how it feels for people who worked hard to get Kerry up there, only to fall prey to Midwestern moronification. I can only imagine how awful it must feel to watch Bush's self-satisfied monkeysmirk plastered all over the newspapers and televisions. I can't even bear to look at the news today, I'm already so sick of seeing the words "Bush" and "victory" in the same sentence.
I, at least, have a buffer of a few thousand miles between myself and the agony of defeat. Just as the Red Sox victory felt rather mild thanks to those few thousand miles, so too does this blow come a little softer. As Jansen said, I guess I would rather the Red Sox wait another year for a World Series victory than have to live another four with Bush representing my country to the rest of the world. I imagine many Bostonites might feel the same.
In truth, Kerry could have won easily if he weren't such a shitty candidate. It shouldn't take much to defeat a talking puppet. Like Gore, Kerry was weak. He was a politico. He had no real inspiration. That, at least, is where Bush excels. He is a strong believer in anti-gay, anti-non-white, anti-poor, anti-environment, and intelligent sentiments. In that regard, he identifies very well with the rednecks from Ohio all the way out to Idaho. Look at a map of the states. Red shows redneck. You can see that ethnic diversity and intellect are pretty much a monopoly held by the blue (democratic) states. Have you ever heard of an ivy-league school in North Dakota? Have you ever heard of anyone non-white even thinking about going to North Dakota? Yeah.
It all comes down to this: Way back in the day, we should have let the South go. They just drag us down anyway, and they haven't changed much since then anyway. We should've let the Midwest go too. After all, what good do any of those states do for the country anyway?
End Rant.
Last night, for perhaps the fifth or sixth time, I wandered into Mami-Mart (the local grocery store) cashless with the intent of buying groceries for dinner. Also for the fifth or sixth time, I failed to recall that Mami-Mart's ATM was recently stolen (ala the movie "Barbershop") and they don't take credit. I returned home with no food.
In fact, I can probably count the number of stores I've been to on two hands that actually take credit. And that pisses me off. See normally, were I back home and realized I had no cash, I could continue happily filling my grocery basket to the brim and pay with credit. Here, already halfway through filling the basket, I'm forced to abandon the venture and put everything back. I can surely say that in a grocery store where I already have no clue where anything is, it's pretty hard to figure out where stuff should be returned to.
For such a technologically advanced (arguably the most advanced in terms of gadgetry) society, Japan sure is behind the times. It's not uncommon for someone to be carrying around $500 in their wallet. To me that seems absolutely assanine. Sure, there's less crime so therefore you're less likely to be mugged or something, but what if you lose your wallet? Well there goes your $500. So okay, I decided I guess I'm going to have to get hundreds of dollars in cash every time I go to the ATM. Easier said than done.
You see, so everyone needs cash all the time. You'd think that would lead to a relatively advanced ATM network. Of course not! It's like no one has heard of the concept of a 24-hour ATM. Every ATM I have ever been to here has a closing time ... usually at about 7PM or something. So if I go out after that without any cash, I'm pretty much screwed until I can hopefully find a convenience store with a working ATM that actually accepts my bank card (which is another problem, there's no universal system). I can't tell you how much of a mooch I feel like sometimes because I haven't yet adjusted to this stupid cash-based nonsense and I have to borrow money. I hate it. On top of that, if you are getting money outside of the bank's hours (9-5, conveniently when I and everyone else work) you get charged by your own bank to take out money at the bank's own ATM.
I hear we can use our cellphones now as a credit card thanks to RFID technology. How can that possibly make things any more useful, I ask, when most stores don't even take credit cards? How the hell are you going to convince these stores, who are too stingy to buy a credit card machine, to go out and buy some sort of newfangled RFID reading machine? Good luck.
So while the rest of the world is speeding along in payment technology, Japan is still moving at the rate of cash, roughly at the same level where the U.S. was in the 80's. I guess that's the real reason why I never have any food. Because I never have stupid cash. Yeah it's my problem but dammit, if you're gonna kick the crap out of every other country in terms of cool technology, why don't you at least equal them in how to pay for that technology! Nothing is more ludicrous (or like a drug dealer), in my opinion, than paying for something like a computer in cash. But I have seen it done.
I have been able to use my credit card a grand total of maybe 5 times in the two months I have been here. In the span of two months at home, I would've probably used my two cards 15 or 20 times each. What convenience! Oh to swipe the plastic with nary a thought ... what joy!
Travelers beware: prepare for your card to become a useless piece of plastic. Maybe I could do something useful with this ... like melt it and get wacky on the fumes.
... if they died off anyway!
As much as people claim that I am a whiner, I can't stand them. For the amount of shit that the average human goes through on a daily basis, I like to think I am on the low end of the scale when it comes to bitching about stuff. There's some saying I heard recently that it's human nature to complain, regardless of the situation. I heartily believe this. It's human nature to whine like a four-year-old. Witness:
Whiners complain about negligence at WTC cleanup
I suppose this was eventually going to happen. It's really only a matter of time before every American man, woman, child, cat, dog, and indescribable creature is somehow connected to spurious litigation. This one particularly gets my goat, however, considering I worked down there. Hell, my very job was to get these people to put their gear on. Guess what? They didn't.
I love how suddenly the "negligence" becomes the responsibility of the supervisory company. My job specifically was to trudge around the Staten Island site where all of the debris was brought to be searched for Identification, remains, and contraband. Whilst trudging, I had to visit every sorting station and take stock of how many of "NYC's finest" (it was NYC's cops who were doing the sleeping ... er ... sorting) were wearing their gear correctly. Every new worker to the site was given ample instruction on how to use the Teflon space suit, air filter, and goggles. Everyone was given a fitting for their protective equipment. No suprise, it was still uncomfortable and no one wore it. Does that make it the fault of the supervisory entity that individuals are too lazy and whiney to wear protective gear? Some may say "but obviously yes, because you weren't doing your job getting them to wear it." Alas, since the NYPD is a prickly bunch, I nor any of my fellow "safety monitors" had jurisdiction. We could just politely ask people to try to use their stuff next time. If you were more strict about it, you were fired because you stepped on too many toes.
Fast forward 3 years (almost 4, wow), and the workers are moaning about how they have problems. Here's a pointer for you, numnutz: Now you know to wear your gear, don't you? Unfortunately, this suit won't go away, I'm sure. It's really too bad, because I hate to see lazy grumbly can't-do-a-simple-task bitches get rewarded for their own mistakes.
In parting: You may wonder how I can rant about this, seeing as the article is about Ground Zero and obviously I was not there. I was privy to a visitation of Ground Zero, thanks to our ID badges. I remember thinking while I was there "man this is the ritz." Their equipment was twice as good as ours, it seems, and the degree of protection available to the workers was amazing. Yet ... nobody wore it. Similar accounts of the quality of care at the site came in from others who visited. So if the workers are just too "cool" or lazy or whatever to wear their gear, whose fault is it if they're now seeing the consequence of their stupidity?
Hey America, wake up! I'm sorry to be the weenie to report this to you, but it is you who is responsible for your own actions, and no other. It's about time that changed and the government stops taking responsibility for the stupidity of its people. After all, a country is only as smart as its dumbest person. I shudder to think just how stupid we really are.
Last Monday, I visited Gyoda Joshi Girls' High School. I'll be the assistant English teacher for two classes there. It was a rather depressing occasion. Let me fill you in. Forgive me if I get a little fruity-sounding; this place gives me a strange feeling.
Gyoda Joshi feels to me like an old man. He is all-too aware of his mortality, and waits for the final moment with both trepidation and anticipation. He knows that death is near, and perhaps he even knows when it will arrive at his bed. Joshi feels the same way. A school that was designed to hold almost a thousand girls now houses sixty students, ten teachers, four staff-members, and myself (but only on Mondays). The building is a shell, a shadow that too quickly reminds you of the aging population in Japan and the shrinking numbers of the younger generations.
Joshi will be closed at the end of this academic year. New admissions ceased in 2001 I believe, such that this year there are only third grade students. The sixty students await graduation with intense anticipation, I feel. For the teachers, it is a different story. They try so hard to engage the students, to participate in a job that has a very definite termination date. A future that seems exciting for students surely is something to bring worry in the factulty. How can you actively engage your students every day, knowing the end is coming and surely you will move on either to retirement or to (hopefully) a greener pasture? Thus, the entire grounds of Joshi smell of decay to me.
This isn't to say that there aren't bright students or dedicated teachers. I did feel that some of the students were interested in English, and certainly the teachers still cared very much for their jobs. But a certain sadness infuses their motions it seems to me, some kind of futility. But I hope I am just imagining it. I do hope that Saitama prefecture will be able to relocate them to a more lively location. I hope their next schools will be filled with the laughter of new students rather than the slow slither of spiderwebs and the creep of mildew. I hope they will find a place where nearly every seat is full, rather than a place where whole wings have been closed off.
I commend the staff at Joshi for their (outwardly) positive attitudes and approach to their situation. Many lesser workers would simply shrink away from the not-so-simple task of finishing out the year at a doomed institution, much as many faced with death will simply wither away willingly.
がんばて！！
Good Luck.
I've been pondering frequently lately the nature of evil. The topic has come up mainly because of overused stereotypes inherent in the popular fiction genres that I tend to read and write. It has also cropped up at times when I am making a statement about someone and the term "evil" manifests.
The problem is that both evil and good are subjective and variable. I've come to determine that evil (and good, to an extent) is much less prevalent in the form in which it is typically defined. The "handmaiden of the devil" type of evil that George Bush finds so endearing is dare I say a very rare exception, not a categorization that you can make as easily as Bush does. The problem is that people want to think of the world as very polarized. Good and Evil, black, white, etc. But you already knew this. And, to be cliche, things are more grey than they are black or white.
I think true evil, the only deserving candidate for the word, is the type of psychotic sadism that most human beings are entirely incapable of harboring. Think Hitler, Vladimir the Impaler, Britney Spears. Most people, though their actions may be callous, inconsiderate, bastardly, are really only doing something out of consideration for what is "good" for themselves. What really manifests far more often in the world is self-centrism rather than evil. Even people who are plain assholes are just trying to get by in the world and put themselves ahead of the game, or they are frighteningly unaware of how their own actions affect others. They are simply living by their own definitions of "good." While I might be tempted to call them evil, it's not a fair judgment to make. So now instead of calling ex-boss or girlfriend or whatever "evil," why don't we try something like "psychotic self-centered bitch (which can actually apply to a boss or significant other, regardless of gender ... isn't that grand)?"
It only bothers me because the concept of a truly evil person is so prevalent in modern fiction (both written and visual) that it has become a bad cliche. The evil scientist bent on world domination. For what? What the hell does world domination get you anyway, aside from a big pain in the ass? Oh, and here we have the age-defying sorceror, determined to harness the power of the gods for ... an endless supply of nubile women? Again, what can world domination get you in the long run, aside from an ulcer or assassination? As much as GW might want to think that the world is that simple (I'm sure in his monkey brain, things are that simple), they clearly are not. Obviously my little rant in a barren corner of the internet isn't going to change a long-accepted cliche. But at least I can change it in my own writing ... or something.
Back in the day, a "carb" was something that denoted much less shame and fear as it does today. Back then, a carb was a hole on the piece that allowed you to "shotgun" your um ... green fun. I suppose that brought to some people a feeling of shame and fear, but those are the same people who think gay people are second-rate citizens and "family values" equals a whuppin' with daddy's belt. Fast forward to now, when the "carb" is the all-encompassing buzzword of 2004. It is respected. It is feared. It is fattening. At least, that's what all these Atkins idiots would like you to think.
I'm so sick of the Atkins craze. Every time I go to the grocery store, the newest "low carb" food has hit the shelves. Even fucking beer has submitted to the low carb thing. When you see "low carb offerings" in restaurants, it's just stupid. You go to a restaurant to eat something good and turn up your nose at health. When you go out to eat, you are treating yourself to something yummy not denying yourself. At least, that's how I've always seen it. But now, it's almost at the point where you can't buy anything that doesn't extoll its own low-carb virtues. Being that I am a skinny mofo and the last thing I need is to lose weight, I can use all the carbs I can get. Of course, guess what? Everything is low-carb now! Low carb soda! Low carb beer! Low carb soap I swear! LOW CARB FRIGGIN BREAD! That has to be by far the most idiotic thing I have ever heard. Bread is the very definition of carbohydrates. Why the hell would you want to eat bread that is low in carbs? I ate a low carb bagel the other day, because a co-worker was nice enough to let me eat it. It tasted like a dish sponge. Not, of course, that I would know what a dish spong would taste like, but you know ... I have a vivid imagination.
I can't wait until the next dietary craze rolls around. Then everyone will roll their lazy fatasses over to that craze and wreck their bodies. Do you people realize that it's not good to deny yourself carbs? It's essentially a form of starvation. Here's a grand fuckin idea. How about EAT WELL AND EXERCISE? I should patent that. I'll call it the "Nawrocki Diet." Hopefully I won't slip on ice like Atkins did, but maybe I'll be able to ride the train of insanity that Atkins started. Better yet, I'm going to cash in on this low-carb bullshit and start selling food that has low crab written on it. I bet you had to read that twice. You see, it says low crab. But idiots that they are, people will see it near the low carb section, and grab whatever food this is, and realize just how yummy it is, and gorge their pudgy selves. They'll say "this is the best low-carb food I've ever had! It doesn't taste like cardboard like that other stuff!"
My revenge will be that they realize that low-carb is a total farce, and I get rich. And I can't get busted for falsified advertising ... right?
Back in high school, I took a trip with Raven Adventures and some high school classmates to Costa Rica. Toward the end of our trip, we trekked 28 miles from the Monte Verde Cloud Forest Preserve down to the volcano town of La Fortuna. It was my first (and thus far only) experience with what was affectionately dubbed "Jungle Miles."
You see, "as the crow flies," the trip from Monte Verde to La Fortuna was 28 miles. As the poor high schooler with a breakfast of one slice of watermelon in his belly and a plastic garbage back for a rainjacket trudges, it's more like 48,347.6 miles. What happens is that the rugged terrain causes a great deal of lateral and vertical travel that you can't account for before getting to it. In other words, you do a hell of a lot more walking than you might if you were on a straight road in Kansas.
I hadn't given much thought to Jungle Miles since collapsing into bed that night in La Fortuna. Until yesterday.
Yesterday I discovered Boston Street Miles, a distant but powerful cousin of Jungle Miles. Feel free to make all of the connections between "concrete jungle" and the like. Lately I have been speeding up my daily commute by rollerblading to and from the T in the morning and the evening. Well yesterday was so ungodly beautiful that I figured I would blade the 6 miles home. That is 6 Mapquest miles aka 6 "as the crow flies" miles. In Boston Street miles, it's like a million and one.
Boston streets are notoriously shitty. I remember when I was growing up in Western MA, everyone complained about how Boston sucked up all of the state's resources and surely due to the poor road conditions in Western MA there must be streets of gold in Boston. Fast forward to now, when I live in the Boston area. It is true, that road funds everywhere across the state have been sucked into Boston, like a giant money-sucking vaccum not unlike a gold-digging significant other. Unfortunately, the nexus of aforementioned money-sucking vaccum is the Big Dig, not Boston itself. The roads here suck. Every time I drive out to Western MA I'm astounded at how good the roads are. Nothing compares to driving down Beacon Street in Somerville and having your car bottom out in the Pothole of Doom (tm). This is a phenomenon I expect in a washed-out dirt road in backwoods Hawley in the middle of winter, not "metro" Boston.
What you don't realize while in the comfort of your car and artfully dodging multiple Potholes of Doom (tm) is that there is a whole other level of Boston street suckiness. This is where me and my rollerblades and Boston Street Miles come in. What seems like a perfectly "smooth" road in a car is experienced in a completely different way on a pair of rollerblades. When your feet are essentially connected to the road, you realize just how rough the road is. Your teeth chatter (not from cold) and your entire body is numb from vibration. You dodge potholes and patches and cracks even more vigorously than in a car, all the while hoping you don't get plowed over by some maniac asshole Boston driver. So you go over to the sidewalk, only to discover that every slab is of a different height and texture, and there are more cracks than the world record for a group moon. So you go back to the street ... and so on. You can see how quickly 6 miles might add up to more, with all of this lateral motion.
Now I think I know why people always stare at me when I'm blading in Boston. So few people do it. This isn't California, where the streets are smooth and everyone uses some form of personal transportation involving wheels and muscle-building. No one blades in Boston because it's near-suicidal. If you don't die from the Frogger-esque dodging between cars and pedestrians then you will almost certainly take a huge digger (inevitably in front of a crowd of onlookers) and end up with a nasty scrape on your ass. Yes, this is a personal experience, though thankfully not yesterday.
So next time you're driving on a road other than a backwoods Hawley dirt road in the middle of winter and you give thought to complaining of its quality, make sure to give a thought to my ass schlepping across Boston and racking up more miles than a Frequent Flyer en route to China.
All thanks to Boston Street Miles.
There has been a remarkable amount of news today in the realm I like to call the "tee hee OH FUCK" news category. I call it that because some of the things that are going on today are so incredibly unbelievable they become rather amusing.
Today's TSA announcement I find particularly interesting because my friend Prima was recently racially profiled up the ass (forgive the expression, she didn't experience any sort of anal exploration) on her most recent return flight from France. This is the kind of stuff that we have been seeing more and more of, but this article is especially chilling because of its blatantly vague wording and the fact that this stuff will inevitably become reality.
A brief snip: "The Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, or CAPPS II, would rank all air passengers according to the likelihood of their being terrorists."
Does that freak you out as much as it does me? I'm white and male, the least likely group in the world to get profiled, but I still find myself shaken by this statement. What the hell kind of criteria are going to be used to establish "likelihood" of terrorist activity? I'll tell you. Brown skin. The article further down explains how the system would work. It mirrors the idiot-proof guidelines of our so-called "terror alert" color-coded warning system (that no one gives two shits about anymore, coincidentally). Unfortunately these color-coded guidelines aren't at all idiot-proof, since obvious idiots created them in the first place! But anyhow, the colorbook fun is as follows: "Suspected terrorists and violent criminals would be designated as red and forbidden to fly. Passengers who raise questions would be classified as yellow and would receive extra security screening. The vast majority would be designated green and allowed through routine screening." We're also assured that privacy will be upheld, and data collected about you will be "stored securely" and destroyed once your travel completes. One word: Bullshit.
Now I don't wear a tinfoil hat but you could probably call me paranoid. Can you blame me? It doesn't really sit well with me that you could be completely barred from a flight because somehow you raise a flag. Prima's experience of being one of the all non-white group called up to the flight counter and "entered into the database" makes me wonder if she already has been classified as "yellow" (asian jokes aside) and gets watched every time she flies. With a name like Prasertrat, it wouldn't surprise me in the least. And would it even stop there? Naw. How many protests do I have to go to before I get flagged as a "threat?" Heh, for that matter, how many times do I have to say George Bush is an idiot to be flagged? Oh yeah, probably already there.
Still further today, we have Colin Powell's "surprise" visit to Iraq. Is it just me, or has poor Powell become the brunt of some huge Bush administration joke? He's the guy who gets to go around looking like a huge asshole in front of other countries (witness the "Anthrax Vial" incident in front of the UN) while Bush (invariably the much bigger asshole) somehow escapes ridicule by anyone but John Kerry. Call Clinton's presidency the Teflon Administration, this makes Bush's rule the Eternally Lucky-as-Hell KY Presidency. Nothing sticks to this man. But Powell, who loses my respect daily by being the idiot patsy for the administration, gets to be the flypaper. I do not envy the man.
Powell today had the dubious honor of echoing George W's idiotic pro-war rhetoric when he visited Baghdad. He said, no doubt with his straight "don't take no gump" face:
"The people of Halabja never have to worry again, neighbors never have to worry again because you have removed -- you and your buddies have removed -- a horrible dictatorial regime."
...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Wait let me take a look at that article again ...
"He told hundreds of U.S. soldiers and civilians, now frequent targets for attack, that Iraq and its neighbors need no longer fear Saddam Hussein's chemical arsenal -- even though U.S. experts have found no such weapons in a year-long hunt."
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
gasp
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAA
JESUS TAPDANCING CHRIST you could've fooled me! Let's go over this again, maybe I'm not as smart as these guys to quite get this right. Okay so Saddam Hussein and his regime have been removed. That we know. "The people of Halabja never have to worry again..." stretches it a little bit, don't you think? I find it just a tad awkward to say something like that a day after two dozen people get blown to bits by a terrorist carbomb and two Iraqi journalists get killed by American soldiers. Saying something like "you no longer have to fear chemical attack" when a year after the war is over they still can't find any WMDs kind of flies in the face of truth, doesn't it? The term "foot in mouth" comes to mind. But this is worse than foot in mouth. This borders on dick in mouth.
It doesn't surprise me that the Iraqi people are starting to wonder if things were better when Saddam was around. He certainly was a creepy despot and was no lover of human rights. But I'm sure there are a whole lot of Iraqis thinking "at least you could go to the store without fear of body parts going flying." Ask the iraqi woman interviewed on TV (absolutely brilliant clip, by the way, saw it on the Daily Show) how "safe" she felt when that hotel bomb went off just as she was being interviewed. I've never seen someone duck off camera faster. And you know what the sad part is? I could've missed it, but she really didn't have any expression on her face. It was almost like "ho hum, another bomb, another 30 people dead. Time to cover my head." You know something is seriously wrong when people have become accustomed to terrorism as common.
It raises a tough question. Do we leave terrible dictators like Saddam in power to ensure regional stability? Or do we remove said dictators from power and risk regional instability? Certainly we're seeing the results of the latter even as I type. The Middle East is a complete disaster now, and George Bush I'm sorry to burst your bubble but you fucked up bigtime. I'm sure the parents of soldiers are really feeling confident and justified when every day they see on the news another story about a group of soldiers bombed or ambushed.
My rambling is probably something you've all read or thought about before, so I guess it's nothing really new. Just thought I'd share those fresh little gems of steaming bullshit served up courtesy of your favorite national government: ours!
How deep can one celebrity sink without ever suffering consequences for her depravity?
Part of the answer is right here. I definitely breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing that Courtney Love's god-awful band "Hole" was defunct. Finally the world would be rid of that crass outspoken hag. Needless to say, as celebrity often does, Courtney simply would not go away. I read almost daily these days about how far the woman has fallen; she gets arrested for breaking windows at 5am in a cracked-out rage, she fails to show up to a court hearing about her alleged illegal painkiller possession, and then she "repeatedly exposes her breasts on Letterman." In attempting to portray herself as as Rock n' Roll Maverick, she has succeeded only in:
a) completely humiliating herself
b) being completely and utterly unaware of humiliating herself
c) turning on a whole new generation of teenagers to ugly fashion and bad music
d) not being a maverick at all but rather reinforcing a decades-old rock stereotype.
Bravo Courtney, bravo. Un-PC as this may be to say, but no wonder Kurt Cobain committed suicide. With an insane bitch like that at your side, wouldn't you? I'm kind of assuming by now that she has completely lost custody of her child, yes? I sincerely hope so. No child should grow up with a pathetic loser like Courtney Love as a mother. I hear her new album has been well-received. It's really too bad that she can succeed so well as a musician (which I commend) but fail so utterly as a fully-functioning human being!
So anyway, I don't like to (at least publicly) denigrate someone for their physical appearance, but take a look at that article and tell me she's not fucked up on something. Not very photogenic, that one. Or maybe it's just the constant stream of heroin or whatever she takes in her bloodstream.
I hear Trent Reznor of "Nine Inch Nails" (and Allegheny College, HAHA) fame dated her at some point. No wonder he writes music to inspire sinking into a deep dark hole.
Poor David Letterman. Did he really want to see those? Yeeks. Talk about late to the bandwagon, Courtney Love ... didn't Drew Barrymore do that to him about 2 or 3 years ago? I'm telling you, that guy sees more breasts than a mammogram technician!
Well at least I won't be anywhere near Courtney's home turf, seeing as I got rejected last night from Univ. Washington. My #1 school! Oh well. Bitter? Yeah. I guess that's why this rant isn't very funny. Sorry!
Maybe I'll go expose my hairy chest to David Letterman. Hell, it seems to do wonders for everyone else's careers! ;)
I find it mildly amusing that anyone with some sort of celebrity these days can claim to have talent beyond what they are famous for. Witness J.Lo's failing clothing line. Newsflash to Jennifer! No one likes your trampy getup! And another flash, no one really likes you! I remember when I was sixteen years old, I wrote my first novel. Admittedly it wasn't the greatest, but it had some originality and was on par with enough of the crap that gets published out there. Meanwhile, Rebecca Lobo, some hotshot UMASS basketball player, gets some publishing deal simply because she has gone to the WNBA (another failed commercial venture, I might add). I doubt she has much literary talent. Indeed, she and Dennis Rodman both got ghost writers. Boy was I bitter.
But this new line of cosmetics really takes the cake. Britney Spears Cosmetics? PUHLEEZE. Just because the girl can wave her ass around and make sexual grunting noises (passing that off as signing) doesn't make her qualified to design fragrances and cosmetics. I mean look at her, she looks like a whore! What's the fragrance going to be, "Eau De Tramp?" Sheeit.
There was a saying I used to have, I think it was back around high school, maybe into my earlier years as college (man that makes me sound old doesn't it). "Use the Placebo Button."
Today's average urban pedestrian resorts quite frequently to the little button that so enthusiastically advertises "Push Button for Cross Signal" in order to get a "walk" signal and cross the street. Caught betwixt the foolishness and cynicism of my youth, I was absolutely sure that the button had absolutely no effect whatsoever on the frequency of walk signals. And thus I referred to it as the Placebo Button, a button that makes its user feel justified and assured that his actions have caused a change in the natural order of the universe.
After long years of personal experience, I began to feel that perhaps my earlier cynicism was unfounded. After all, I had resorted to pushing the Placebo Button quite frequently, and more often than not it seemed to actually cause a walk signal that might otherwise have been skipped in the cycle of traffic signals. I began to believe in The Button. Just as one believes hitting the "up" button for the elevator makes it somehow increase its speed, so too will hitting the Placebo Button cause a change in traffic patterns to accomodate the mighty weilder of The Button. But then, as the user, you might ask yourself if hitting The Button a second time will cancel out the first press, thereby rendering your hard work meaningless. I know I asked the question of myself.
It turns out that the cynicism of my youth was well-founded. Age had taught me nothing about traffic patterns but lies and unfinished promises. It was all a lie! It really was a Placebo Button. You can imagine the feeling of my world collapsing about me as I read the news. "...More than 2,500 of the 3,250 walk buttons that still exist function essentially as mechanical placebos, city figures show. Any benefit from them is only imagined..." (nytimes.com) I don't know which is more soul-crushing; the fact that my suspicions are true, or someone else used the phrase I had coined many years ago and is actually getting paid to write an article about it.
This is just another example of how I, Justin Nawrocki, am a true trendsetter. Just ask Kristin from work. People were harrassing me for having unironed clothes. I distinctly remember saying "just wait, wrinkled clothes will be the next Big Thing." Fast forward three months later, and "trendy" people on the cover of the Improper Bostonian were sporting wrinkled shirts. A few weeks later I found myself in the "trendy" section of one of those bigass department stores, and what did I see? Pre-wrinkled shirts. Imagine my ironic surprise! I imagine that my decision to "rock the white fro" (let my hair grow like an overenthusiastic hedge) will doubtless result in the newest hairstyle to become unkempt, without product, and foofy. Just you wait.
So just keep in mind people, watch what I'm doing, because you know it'll be big coming soon. For instance, I'm going to bed soon. I can only imagine what kind of trend "sleeping" is going to be after I try it. Sheesh.
Boston.com - Gay Marriage Ban Closer
Will Massachusetts always be doomed to be considered a "progressive" state, only to lag behind truly progressive states like California? I'm sorry, but the constitution is not at all the appropriate medium for bigotry. Ban it all you want, but do not defile the Constitution. Hear that, George Bush. Push all the agendas you want, but keep the Constitution out of it.
Think of it this way. Imagine if Democrats once again ruled the White House and Congress and decided that they were going to use the Constitution as a bulletin board for their agenda and didn't allow Republicans to marry (and therefore propogate, since it seems that Republicans don't favor pre-marital sex either) via the Constitution. You'd find that pretty galling, bigoted, and needless to say fucked up. But no, since you think that gays (and probably everyone other than white privileged fucks like yourself) are subhuman, that analogy doesn't apply now does it?
Talk about sanctity of something, think about the revered document you're trying to defile with your petty agendas. Talk about sanctity of marriage, how sanctimonious is a marriage performed by a priest who was molesting a young boy in the back room a day before the marriage? Please explain. It seems incredibly hypocritical for straight-and-narrow people to say that straight marriage is the only true marriage when divorce rates are over 50 percent and every week a new priest (who, by trade, abhors homosexuality as a sin) gets outed for molestation. Is that at all a problem to you people? Talk about fucked up!
I guess I'm just a bleeding-heart liberal but doesn't it bother anyone that others are being treated with less rights than the majority? Isn't that inherently wrong according to the laws set down by our forefathers? I recognize of course that said slave-owning forefathers were rather hypocritical, but times have changed and we pride ourselves in "freedom." Well, George Bush, all that "freedom" that people are supposedly dying for in Iraq is obviously a complete sham since certain people aren't allowed the basic rights that others are. This country is a freaking joke.
*sigh*
In other news, I've been messing around with the layout of the site so if you notice weird rendering or boxes or anything, don't be alarmed. Most likely they'll be gone in an hour or so once I've finished messing around with css layout goodness. If you want to hook up an RSS feed to my site, notice the "Syndicate this Site" link on the sidebar. RSS basically is a "news feed" that tells you when I've updated my site and also shows you what I've written. it's pretty cool, because as Ryan puts it, you can read 100 news pages a day without having to click to every single one of them! I'll come up with a recommendation for a good Aggregator soon enough.
Don't get me wrong, I really have nothing wrong with God-types, though that may come out the wrong way in this little piece. What I do have a problem with is people who take things to extremes, whether they be to the extreme right or extreme left. I lean left myself so I'm a little more forgiving of leftists. As far as I've seen, they tend to be less mentally challenged anyway.
So I'm reading this article on CNN today, maybe you've heard about this little scandal of sorts. Apparently some idiot school supervisor wanted to remove the word "Evolution" from all curricula of the school. May I repeat: all curricula. That's a lot of freaking stuff to remove one word from. And for what? Her claim is that she is trying to remove controversy from an issue that draws a lot of fire in the South. Guess what, lady, not to sound like a snooty Yank, but there are a lot of idiots down there. Mind you, that's not saying we up in "The Frigid North" don't have our own share of people who for all practical purposes should be confined to the cattle yards. How many more riots do we have to have in Boston when a sports team wins before somebody realizes that when it comes to sports and winning, Boston has a hive-mind with the IQ of a gnat. Bees, by the way, are the ones who have hives, but as far as I can tell, they're smarter than gnats. So imagine a hive of gnats all acting coherently. The results you get are overturned cars, drunken fratboys, and, if you're lucky, a World-Series-Winning baseball team sometime before pigs fly. But, as per usual, I digress.
The problem I have with the so-called "controversy" surrounding evolution is this: there is no controversy! From what I've gathered, there isn't really any respected representative of the "scientific community" who believes that anything happened but evolution. The only people who really deny the fact (yes, fact) that evolution happened are people with a bible shoved up their asses. I have absolutely no problem with religion, but sorry, we did not all appear in seven freaking days. Maybe God (or whomever) had a hand in the process of steady genetic mutation (otherwise known as evolution) and selection, but I (and most scientists) simply cannot accept the idea that everything just appeared. Even the Big Bang theory, which posits that everything did just appear (though not rabbits and plants and Adam and Eve and whatnot) is often grouped with theories about what was there before said bang of bigness.
So why the hell change your entire school curriculum to reflect the desires of some uber-religious Godheads who won't accept anything short of saying (in the public school which last time I knew was part of the government which last time I knew was separate from the church) "God created everything in six days and took off the seventh to smoke some of that seriously good shit that he created on the third day." Well they probably wouldn't say that being that seriously good shit is the Doob of the Devil, but whatever. Anyway, my point being that people who are pissed at the idea of evolution won't be happy until you change everything in your school to reflect the fact that your school is nothing short of a christian summer camp. Hopefully they won't sing any stupid songs either.
I remember reading a book about evolution called "The Beak of the Finch." The idea is that Charles Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands and saw such clear evidence that different sub-species of Finch had developed different strategies for survival through selection that he was convinced of the idea of natural selection (and subsequently evolution) and the rest is history. My question is this: how the hell can you say God decided to create 47 (or whatever) different species on Finch on one set of islands? Unless he was smoking some of that serious shit, I really doubt that God had the time nor desire to do that. Maybe he was sitting around on whatever day it was (the fifth?) and was thinking "Boy I'm really sick of thinking up new vile and disgusting parasites and virii. It's time for a change...hmm...Finches!" I imagine God had something better to do ... like come up with AIDS which would crop up when someone got randy with a chimp and eventually kick the shit out of half the human race. The other half would be fucked by George W. Bush, who was Lucifer's fantastic idea.
In any case, the idea was cancelled to change the curricula of the school system. Good freakin' idea lady. So many people are relieved she didn't try to push such an assanine idea that I swear I heard a collective sigh coming from somewhere down that way. Then again, I swear I also heard someone say "man this is some good shit" coming from up there. May lightning strike me down if it wasn't good. Well, time for me to pray that if the Secret Service doesn't come after me, neither will AIDS nor anyone from the South. Or drunken fratboys.
This may be a relatively short rant due to the fact that everyone and their gay uncle loves this show with absolute passion. However, rarely do I rant about something or someone when someone couldn't find something to object to. I know I'm treading on someone's holy ground, but whatever. I'm sick of the damn show. So here goes. This is another one of those things where you have to live in a complete hole in the ground (or simply be without television, much like my parents) to not know what this ridiculous phenomenon is. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, produced by BRAVO, is one of the most sickeningly popular (and sickeningly moronic) television shows to date. It has brought BRAVO straight (pun intended) from the pits of suckiness into the shiny, more luxurious pits of popular suckiness. The premise of the show is that five completely gayed-up and utterly over-stereotyped gay guys makeover a heinously over-stereotyped straight guy. And everyone loves it. I have several bones to pick (mild gay sexual innuendo also intended) with the creators of this show. And possibly the "Fab 5" since they are heading up this moronic fruit-fest.
Stereotypes: Some may say this is a huge step forward in homosexual acceptance. I beg to differ. I see it more as a sideways step than anything else. You see, yes, there may be more acceptance of certain aspects of the gay lifestyle, but at the expense of massive stereotyping. The point is, not ever gay man has impeccable fashion sense and a huge budget at which to blow on hair products. Neither does every straight man have long scraggly hair, a unibrow, and clothes from the 80's. Straight guys can live with bad stereotypes because let's face it, it's still good to be a straight white male. However, this stupid show just creams itself over quite a few gay stereotypes that aren't exactly flattering. Witness the flambouyant blonde guy who is the show's de facto leader. His fashion sense may be damn good, but he does wear some pretty fugly things on occasion. And he's annoyingly fruity. It's a fact of life, yes, that gay men can at times be rather effeminate and ... eccentric. However, sometimes he seems just a tad overdone. The same goes for several of the other four members of the crew. I read a quote from a gay politician (I don't remember his name so don't sue me) in Massachusetts, and he made a very accurate point. This show doesn't do much to forward gay acceptance at all, really. It makes gay people seem a little more acceptable to the average straight Joe, but just the parts about spending lots of money, being fashionable, and (arguably) cute. People watch the show and say "oh my how resourceful those gay people are!" much in the same way we marvel at a zoo animal. It doesn't necessarily impart any sort of respect for the people or their rights. Running around: On a less serious note, this one is kind of one of those stereotypes I complain about, but not really. It's more miscellaneous than anything else. Anyway, what is up with all the running around? These guys run everywhere! Are we supposed to impart from this show that gay men run everywhere, because they don't have enough time in their lives of shopping and looking good? Last time I knew, it was rather fashionable to kind of strut everywhere. None of this running shit. It gives me a cramp. The Same Show: Every freaking episode of this show is the same. Every single one I've seen involves the guy having long scraggly (usually blonde) hair and the stylist chopping it off and the "Fab 5" grooming guy telling him to "juge" (jooj? juuj? I have no idea how to spell that word). Hello, I've had the same damn haircut that they're calling hip and innovative on this show for five years! Shouldn't these fashionistas be able to come up with something a bit more cutting edge than the messy look? Moolah: Essentially what it all really comes down to is the fact that I am jealous. If only I had a place to myself and some sort of "hook" that would interest the producers of the show. Oh and I'd have to pretend to be unfashionably and irrepressibly straight. That may be mildly difficult seeing as I have gone on many a shopping expidition to Express Men with (a) my female roommates (b) gay men. Apparently that makes me "Metrosexual" but I'm so sick of that word too. If I could pull of getting the show, they'd spend upwards of $50,000 just to make me gayified for a night on the show. Would I mind them decking out my entire apartment with Pottery Barn furnishings? Hell no.
Keep in mind that not only am I straight but in no way was this intended as a gay-bashing rant. I rather find it pretty irritating that this show is considered innovative and entertaining. I suppose it is entertaining, but it failed to become innovative when the food tip was "red wine is no longer good when the bottle collects dust." You don't have to be gay, straight, or anything really to figure that one out.
It was a normal Monday morning by any standards here in Boston. I rushed through the rain down to the train station only to wait for about 10 minutes for the train (T schedules claim rush hour trains arrive every 4 minutes). Once the train "took off" it proceeded to stop in the middle of the tunnel (not at a station) every 50 feet or so and wait for some indescribably long time. You see, when you're rapidly becoming late for work and the train isn't going anywhere, time slows to just about absolute zero (you know, that temperature where all atomic motion ceases). I know I know, temperature isn't used to measure time, but you get the idea. So after an insanely long train ride, I got stuck on the stairs behind some family of overweight tourists and realized it was high time for me to compile a hate-list. If you've ridden on public transit before, I guarantee you'll end up recognizing a few of these. In fact, I'm sure you'll recognize some of these from my own previous rants.
- Insanely Loud High School Students: These kids have never heard the term "quiet" in their lives, I imagine. Thankfully, I've never been on the same car with these ones during the morning commute, but it's probably just as bad in the evening when you're coming home from work with a headache so bad it feels like your brain is gelatinous. Typically, any one conversation that is louder than the screeching of metal on metal that the T trains tend to produce can be drowned out with a simple pair of headphones. Not the case with these little harbingers of doom. I didn't think it was possible for there to be a more annoying sound on the T than the screeching wheels. But "Oh nuh-uh she didn't!" screamed at the top of one's recently-pubescent lungs takes the cake. These kids are universally reviled. Everyone in the train stares at them, silently boring black holes of death into their loud-assed skulls. The Upside: almost to a (wo)man, the kids get off at Central Square, leaving the survivors with a peaceful ride for the next few stops. There is no upside if they don't get off the train.
- The Mystery Fart-Machine: I know I have bitched about this one before, but I really can't stress to you how annoying (and nauseating) it is to smell someone's "shit particles" in an enclosed space. The T should smell like burning plastic (typical), wet dog (rainy day), or nothing. Period. Unfortunately, there are those, like "Mr. Anderson" in The Matrix, who seem to think that certain rules don't apply to them. I just wish there was something they could pump into the air that made it obvious who "sealed the deal." You know, like the "water turning purple" that people warn their kids about in the pool. Whenever some jerk cuts one in the T, you get a big orange cloud erupting from their ass. Okay so the visual isn't very appealing but then you know who did it and you can administer disgusted facial expressions as appropriate.
- Smokers: It's fine if you want to blacken your lungs on your own time and out in the open. I really don't care. However, I do begin to care when I don't have a choice about what I'm breathing (which is why T farts piss me off too). There are certain clever individuals who think they're doing something "badass" and "rebellious" by smoking while waiting for the train. I don't think I've ever seen someone stupid enough to smoke on the train. Oh no wait, yes I have, see thugs below. In any case, these T-smokers haven't yet figured out that smoking no longer makes you look like a cool rebel. You just look like every other schmoe who has a white stick permanently glued between their fingers. Oh, but you're doing it in the station and pissing off everyone around you, that makes you look so unbelievably cool! Perhaps you'll look cooler when someone throws your rebellious ass into the track pit. Go ahead, touch that third rail. The sign says "DANGER - 10 QUINTILLION VOLTS OF INNER-ORGAN-JELLIFYING ELECTRICITY" so that means you've gotta break that rule too!
- Pre-Pubescent Thugs: I've only experienced this once, actually, but that one time was plenty enough for me. Saturday evening T rides, by the way, are typically the most vile rides you will ever take. I mistakenly stepped on the train with my friend into an entire group of pre- and barely-pubescent thugs. They kind of overlap with the Loud High School Student category, but they're far more threatening. As if the cigar smoking wasn't bad enough, there was the 12 year old kid staring at my friend's partially-exposed (it was club-night, after all) boobs and fondling himself. Yes, fondling himself. In her face. I would have killed him, but frankly I didn't really feel like getting my ass kicked by a hoard of 15-year-olds.
- Drunk Funky Guy: For some reason, every time I see this guy he's drunkenly trying to flirt or somehow make weird conversation with some overly-nice asian girl. I don't know what kind of cosmic forces are at work so that it happens like this every time, but I swear it's true. I've mentioned it before, and I will mention it again: there are so many people on the train who pity her and want to help her, but no way in hell does anyone want to upset the natural balance of things and remove her as the buffer. He might make everyone on the T uncomfortable, but at least he's talking to her and not you right? Inevitably, he smells too, and you know what I feel about people who stink on the T. I wish they could install some sort of stink-detectors at the turnstiles. Keep the riffraff out!
- Drunk Guys from Southie: Someone will probably rail me for being classist or something, but there really isn't any sort of class distinction here. All right well I'm making an assumption that they're from Southie, but where the hell else would they be from? These guys are really freaking annoying. They've got the social grace of hyenas, and roughly the same pack mentality. They're going from one bar to another on a Saturday night and they're already loaded. Witness an example: Man with an older-styled hat steps on the train. Drunk Guy from Southie #1 says to other 3 Drunk Guys from Southie "Hey, look everyone, it's Tommy-Lee Jones!" Note, however, that I have never seen Tommy-Lee Jones wear a hat like that. Also note, the guy looked nothing like Tommy-Lee Jones. It helps to be a little educated about your speaking topic, dolt. Then again, what the hell do I know? I'm not a Drunk Guy from Southie.
- Mr./Mrs. Impatient: An everyday commuter just like the rest of us, but this person has to be wherever about 5 minutes ago. Naturally, the train still has 2 or 3 minutes to go before it reaches the station, but Captain Impatient shoves through the train, putting everyone off balance, just so (s)he can be off the train absolutely first. I always get a kick out of seeing this, because inevitably this person will fly off the train like The freaking Flash and end up, every time, behind some dumbass who won't walk up the escalator. Sucker!
- Fugly Couple Making Out: I don't have much to say about this at all. Just don't freakin' do it, all right? It's bad enough that we have to see your ugly pusses occupying the same 5 square foot space. It's an entirely different matter when you decide to share your undying love with the rest of us. Gah! Put some damn clothes on!
- Fat Kid with Crutches: You may think I'm being overly harsh here, but this one truly takes the cake and is actually the inspiration for this list of oozing public transit angst. The fat kid with crutches. What can I say about him? He's about 10, he weighs as much as I do, and he has crutches. He ascends stairs at a rate of one per minute. There are 14,000 stairs you have to climb to get from the Red Line level to the Green Line level. And an elevator. Did you read that right? Yes. ELEVATOR. I give this evolutionary outcast a little slack on the elevator thing only because of his one-brain-cell family (who also, coincidentally, are fat ... and have crutches ... just kidding). You see, it is so painfully obvious that these invertebrates are tourists that you can't really blame them for not seeing the enormous ELEVATOR signs. But back to the point: fat with crutches. You may be a little cute chunk of lard, but that doesn't exempt you from having motor skills. I've seen people ascend stairs faster with crutches than without. Monday morning rush hour is just not a good time to practice your stair-climbing abilities with your sticks of handicappedness. After I milled around on the platform for a good 5 or 10 hours waiting for this kid to climb the stairway to heaven (read: Green Line), I rushed up the stairs with everyone else ... only to end up stuck behind the kid's fatass family, who is aimlessly milling about at the top of the stairs. So it's really not the kid's fault that he's dumber than a rock, uncoordinated, and 40 pounds too heavy. Blame genetics.
Now that there was a rant. You know there are still others I could include in the list, like the girl on the cell phone or the recruiting mormons. Suffice to say, the T is a dangerous, scary, smelly, annoying place. But all in all (oddly) it's better than driving!
Contrary to what you may be thinking, this is not going to be a film review of a movie that one of my friends often refers to as "the best porn ever." No, I'll let other people review such scintillating monologues as "The Postman always comes twice!" and "My wife's doing the mailman...I like it again!" Regardless, the topic of today's rant revolves around the most bureaucratic institution of the federal government: the US Postal Service.
The postman may very well come twice. I think they even do in Somerville. But 42 Curtis Street (my humble home) seems to be a black hole of Postal Intelligence. The moment the girl (I have seen her - She is, as far as I can verify, female) walks up to our door, all rational thought is rendered null and void. Speaking of void, that may as well be what lies between her ears. If this girl is the template for the average USPS mail carrier, she has proven that it takes no more than the IQ of a cactus to carry mail. You'd think it wouldn't take much, because all you have to do is sort a little. "Sort" is a word that obviously this girl has never heard of. There are three apartments in the house. Three. All last year, she put every bit of mail for every apartment in our mailbox, thus delegating the sorting task to us. This may seem like a rather intelligent task, but you needn't doubt. She is a moron. Every single mailbox at 42 Curtis has names on it. Most of the mail we receive does not match any of the names on any of the mailboxes. It has been this way for the year and a half I have lived there. Periodically, our lovely carrier will leave notes saying "Does She Still Live Here?" Every time I reply back "The only people who live here are the ones on the boxes" just to make sure she gets it into her pea-sized brain that the ONLY PEOPLE WHO LIVE HERE ARE THE ONES ON THE BOXES!!!! It doesn't seem that hard to grasp, does it?
For aforementioned people not living in our house yet still receiving mail there, we used to be able to write "Forward" on the letters and they would promptly be whisked away into some wonderland of mail sorting and eventually routed to the correct recipient. It seems, with this girl, you have to go to extreme lengths to get her to even notice the enormous "FORWARD" written on each envelope. Many of them have gone weeks without her picking them up. I've resorted to propping them up in odd ways so she is guaranteed to see them when she chucks our (and everyone else's) mail into the box. She still manages to miss them. Someday, I swear, in the not-too-distant future, I'm going to snap and simply ask her to stop sucking so much at a job that even geologic formations can do better than her. Of course then, we won't receive any mail at all.
She is only part of the picture. The one institution in the world that is more bureaucractic than the (former) Soviet socialist government is the USPS. Three weeks ago, my landlord sent to me a large sum of money via certified mail (no, not blood money, rather deposit money). Last week the notice came (amazingly) to our mailbox informing me that I could go to the Post Office to pick it up or sign the back, put the note back out, and have the mail delivered. I was foolish enough to believe that our lovely neanderthal carrier could actually get this task right. So I signed the back, posted the little form, and assumed she would bring the letter back. Two days passed in which she didn't even take the form. Then the form disappeared. I figured "Finally, justice is mine!" A week passed without the letter being delivered. So today I have to take some time from work to go to the post office to get this little letter. But I decided that it would be good to call ahead and see if they could even find this letter. Good news: they can't! I have been ferried (via phone, of course) back and forth between the West Somerville office and the Union Square office, each telling me they can't find it and to go back to the other one. What I wonder is, what the hell is the point of certified mail if no one can find it anyway? The landlord might as well have sent a carrier pigeon, as obviously they have better organizational, navigational, and motor skills than our current mail carrier.
I don't quite understand why postal workers are so disgruntled. Sure it's a shitty job, but it's only shitty because the entire system is so dreadfully inefficient. Do you want to know why it's so inefficient? Even if you don't want to know, obviously I'm going to tell you. It's because the USPS keeps hiring complete GOOMBAHS into its workforce. It's such an obvious example of the lowest common denominator, people. The hive is only as good as the lamest bee. Well that was a crappy analogy, but truly I think the USPS is kind of like an insect hive. Lots of officious, useless, buzzing insects trapped in a gooey, apparently organized mess. The point is, the USPS is only as good as its least intelligent member. Judging from the girl writing "Does he live here?" about someone whose name is clearly written on the mailbox, I can't even imagine what the lowest common denominator of the Postal Service really is. Next time, I'm calling Kevin Costner.
I once saw an episode of Dexter's Laboratory in which he grew a synthetic beard to appear more "rugged." With his new rugged appendage, Dexter joined "Action Hank" in a beard duel with some evil flour smugglers. If you're missing the point thus far into my monolgue, fear not - I'm getting there. You see, the creators of the episode may have captured the "ruggedity" of beards, but they managed to completely sidestep the other, darker aspect of facial hair.
The problem with facial hair, at least the week-old variety, is the itch. It is an itch unlike anything I can describe to you. It's not a deep soul-sucking itch like poison ivy or bee stings, nor is it one of those little itches that will go away with a few passes of your fingers. If you don't move, you feel almost OK. But the moment you move your head just a little bit, thousands of prickly little hairs scratch at your tender baby-bum skin. And you itch. Oh how you itch. I have no idea why anyone would actually want to grow a beard, as the process of doing such is sheer torture. You know that all you have to do is go home and shave it off, and the beard-free feeling is like Heaven on Earth. But beards have a purpose, and thus they usually don't get shaven.
This current week-long beard expedition of mine started out as sheer laziness. My facial hair is often a product of above-mentioned motivational deficit. The "benefit" of it is such that I look like an Urban Lumberjack and feel like one of those morose looking kids in Gap commercials. Except as far as I know, I don't dress as stupidly as they do and I don't stand around white rooms looking angry that I'm being paid to look angry.
Apart from laziness, this beard of mine has gained a purpose, and thus cannot be shaven, much as I want to rid myself of the infernal itch. You see, the last time I shaved, the Boston Red Sox lost the second game of their playoff series with the Oakland Athletics. At the time, I gave it no thought, but no sooner had I stopped shaving (read: got lazy) then the Sox began to win. They have won three consecutive nail-biter games since I stopped. Like every good Red Sox fan, I have taken this to heart, knowing deep within my soul that the winning fortunes of my favorite team are inextricably linked with the hair follicles on my rugged face. The Sox play the Yankees tonight, a most hated foe. So you see, it's nearly impossible for me to shave this here Yak's coat the adorns my face. How could I? My own friends would burn me at the stake were I to shave and the Red Sox to lose.
Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy not wasting time shaving. Aside from the fact that I look like some sort of balding Gorilla, the "rugged urban" look isn't so bad either. Aside from the looks I get on the train saying such wonderful things as "man that guy is a lazy non-shaving mofo" or "what a grub," I feel pretty liberated. But don't get me wrong. The itch is driving me insane. My personal sacrifice for the Red Sox brings tears to your eyes, doesn't it? At least, I suppose, it's not like wearing a pear of "lucky Red Sox underwear" since they started winning. That invites, I imagine, a much more infernal itch.
Justin's lame disclaimer: Be on the lookout for dirty words. And cover the
eyes of your children and/or spouse and/or parents and/or never mind...you get
the point.
Utrecht. What can I say? It's just an amazingly brautiful city. The inner
core has hours worth of walks by canals, through, parks, along narrow
streets, over little bridges, and beside lovingly well maintain old buildings.
There's enough bars, restaurants, and diversions to keep a visitor happy for
days.
And the brown cafes--smoke-up parlors--are everywhere. Must be because
of the local university. Apparently that's what people do in Utrecht, they to
there to get high. They get stupidly high. They get so high it reminds you
of that George Carlin line, "You know, how HIGH do you have to BE?"
It's a good question.
So I've been staying at a StayOkay hostel in Den Haag, which is nice, clean,
efficent, and fairly well managed. It's one of those hostels where you see
middle-class families getting rooms and athletic cycling enthusiasts getting
beds in dorms. Tour groups stay there. It's pretty above-bar. And Den
Haag is a nice sort of city: a little pricey, definitely classy, upscale, and
resorty.
Not like Utrecht. Utrecht is a beautiful city, but it's not populated by
diplomats and well-to-be beach resort enthusiasts. It's populated by
students and backpackers.
My hostel was "lovingly restored by a group of ex-squatters."
Basically, they squatted the place for so long the owner let them have it if
they agreed to make something of it. It's a nice place, it's in a narrow
building with a lovely lobby/dining area, a great sitting area/lounge with
plush Old Europe furniture (a bit torn, but they're squatters man, it's all
good) and French doors leading out to a patio, decorative pond, and
garden in the back. I got a dorm bed for the cheapest I've found so far,
probably the cheapest in Holland.
Lovely decorations: a painting that said "Look without reading this" on the
wall--so classy. It's like one of those 3D pictures that you have to stare
at for a long time to get. But nobody wanted to wait so they all just smoked
up instead. The walls in the lounge were a striking yellow. STRIKING
YELLOW. The sort of thing that really impresses stoned people. As in
"Wow, these walls are really yellow!" Yeah, those walls have a lot of
handprints on them.
Yellow walls + legalized mushrooms, you do the math. If you haven't
guessed, the hostel is basically a Chucky Cheese's for stoners. The walls
are yellow, but if you go upstairs, the staircase walls are green. So are the
stairs. So is the carpeting they put down over the stairs so people won't
hurt themselves falling over. The bathroom area is all blue: floor, walls,
ceiling. And the sinks and toilets are massive, out-sized monsters so that
whether you're shooting up or rallying out both ends at once, you still can't
miss. More colors for the dorms.
The color scheme is so you can find your room baked, high, fried, or
wasted. People could get lost without those colors. And
the big, laminated 72-font signs at the landing on the stairs telling people
what rooms are on that floor. But the staff work really hard to keep the place
immaculately clean so that it has this odd feeling about it: a safe, cheap,
and clean place to get higher than you ever thought possible. It's an odd
combo.
So as you can probably tell, it's definitely not a swank place, at least
that's the conclusion I came to. And since it's so posh it attracts the sort of
chichi clientele that made me feel special just associating with them: budget
drug addicts.
It's really the other customers that make or break a hosteling
experience, like the people making drug deals in front of the hostel safe
every time I went there. Or the Japanese backpacker I ran into four days ago
in The Hague who didn't even remember he had been to The Hague. But of
course there's always one guy who's the odd one out. This time it was a
nice, clean-cut, New Zeelander who was cycling around Europe. He had all
the spandex cycling clothes, with matching pannier bags. Matching pannier
bags. Probably a virgin, too.
Anyway, clearly he has not yet mastered the art of reading through the
lines of a Lonely Planet guide that say "lovingly restored by a group of
ex-squatters" to read: "This place is run by drug addicts for drug tourists."
So he was a bit appalled when this Japanese girl came in our dorm room
around 1:30 and these two Japanese tourists started passing her between
them. Or when they started gangbanging her on the bunk next to his. I
mean, at least it wasn't the bunk over his. The best part was that they would
take turns helping each other shoot up. They had their system down to a
well-oiled machine: the first one would help the second one shoot and then
they'd switch off, shoot the other one up, and fuck like crazy. After the third
one came back from puking he'd jump in and then one of them would
eventually get nauseated from all the sex and run to the bathroom, leaving
two people to shoot each other up again. This was about the part where
the athletic cycling enthusiast guy rolled over (he was WATCHING, what a
pervert) and mouthed "OH MY GOD, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?"
which is an insanely dumb question, if you ask me. I'm pretty sure that it
was just your standard E, heroin, Viagra, combo, with some double
penetration to spice things up. And considering he was watching, it's a
REALLY DUMB question. But I could be wrong. It's a fine line between
drugged consent and drugs for sex, you know.
All this was followed a little later by a fear-stricken "DO SOMETHING!!!"
from the Kiwi, also mouthed in dead silence. I think he might have had a
panic attack and passed out. Just as well, he wasn't going to get to sleep
otherwise.
I slept like a baby. I am one hardcore backpacker. I can sleep through
ANYTHING. When I got up in the morning, the Japanese girl was just
putting her clothes back on and the clean-cut New Zeeland boy was sound
asleep. He could have definitely used a few puffs before bedtime. Those
crazy Japs just assumed he was too stoned to care. Why else would he be
staying in a Dutch hostel run by ex-squatters, man?
Points to the Japanese girl for taking a dick up the ass and another up the
cunt without making a sqeak. Must have been the heroin.
How HIGH do you HAVE to BE? Pretty fucking high, man. Pretty fucking
high.
Like many sanity-conscious Boston commuters, I choose to forgo the living hell that is the Boston auto commute and I take the (sarcasm alert!) wonderful, clean, efficient (end sarcasm) MBTA to and from work every day. The problem is, however, that the T really isn't that much more relaxing than doing the whole "sit in traffic and fume" thing. Instead of sitting in your well-appointed vehicle, you sit on a duct-taped seat next to some fat guy who takes up half of your seat, and you try desperately to be interested in the news you're reading. Or, even worse, you could be standing in the middle of the morning pack, not even able to hold onto one of the "safety" poles when your crack-addled train driver brings the multi-thousand-ton train to a screeching halt.
But I have yet to delve into the real reason why you're here. You (arguably) want to hear me rant about the guy (or girl, but less likely) on the train whom everybody hates: the stinky guy. I bring this up because it seems that quite regularly I get caught on the train (along with scores of other people) along with someone who really smells. I mean we're talking smells like "want to get off at the next stop and change cars" smells. Of course, you realize, something this very morning must have triggered this rant. Indeed, my fair reader, indeed (I've always wanted to say that). This morning's misadventure was much like Sunday's misadventure with a smelly hitch-hiker: completely beyond my control and more affected by the planetary alignments rather than my will. It was, by T standards, quite normal, being that I was stuck in the weird swivelling section of the Green Line train that I have only witnessed in Boston. Apparently, some bonehead, knowing that he had a captive (literally) audience, let one rip. A nice gag-inducing stinker. The question I ask is this: what kind of jerk decides to let these things out in crowded, non-ventilated spaces? You know everyone will suffer (including you). It's the same thing as "passing gas" in the elevator. Just don't do it. But of course, this bonehead thought it would be a neat trick and maybe it would be the "non-smelly kind." Boy were you ever wrong, jackass!
Of course, there also tends to be a problem with people who are just plain stinky. Most often there's the alcoholic looks-homeless guy without teeth who inevitably has the one empty seat next to him (I wonder why) and inevitably some poor hapless asian girl sits next to him and is forced to talk to him for the remainder of her ride. I kid you not, every time I see this, it is some asian girl who is presumably not from this country and has not had the courtesy sucked straight out of her like the rest of us have. You want to help, but you figure it's best to leave the situation alone. After all, he's stinky and you're secretly glad she serves as a stink-buffer. You also have occurrences of the really sweaty gym guy, the perfume queen, and the French girl I dated six years ago. If you've ever been trapped somewhere like the train with someone stinky, you know what I'm talking about. And if you haven't, just imagine walking onto the train, the doors closing behind you (invokes images of one of those haunted-house movies, eh?), and a suspiciously fishy odor wafting over you like a frenzied school of jellyfish. Yeah, now you feel it. Who's complaining now!
So someone finally got around to scientifically researching and proving what the rest of us have already known for years: People who use cell phones on planes are big assholes. Those of you who know me (which is all of the three of you who "regularly" check my page) know that I am deathly afraid of planes. We're talking cold, sweaty palms, pounding heart, wide Bambi-eyes... and this is all the night before the flight. I can tell you that nothing makes me more irritated and nervous than some whack-job using a cell phone on the plane. There was that one Thanksgiving ice storm that did make me more nervous, but we'll write that off as a mere technicality, won't we? I figure that those of you who have done any more than very infrequent flying have probably come across some lowlife who just must have the cell phone on during the flight. In my experience, there are two kinds of people who do this:
- Uber-Connected Businessman: This is the guy you see in the airport looking oh-so-blase about this traveling thing, always on his phone talking about some god-awful deal that will probably bring ruin upon indiginous populations in rainforests somewhere far away from said airport. He won't stop talking even once you're on the plane. The only time he will stop talking is when the attendant tells him to turn the damn thing off. Oh, he'll obey. But the moment she turns her back, the stupid phone is back on again, and he's text-messaging or checking his email or stocks or whatever. Hello asshole, just because you're not talking doesn't mean the phone isn't ON! When my plane is going down in a fiery mass toward the ocean, I'll be sure to wring his neck before we all die.
- Annoying Phone-Playing Kid: You've seen them everywhere. I remember being on a bus in Scotland trying to sleep while some genius checked out all of the ringtones in his new phone. This was back in the day when American cell phones looked like bricks, and European cell phones looked like American cell phones do now (yes, there is that much of a time-lag), so he had approximately 8 thousand ringtones. The same applies to the same type of person on planes. This jackass is listening to every nuance of Back That Ass Up in beautiful monotone cellphone ringer goodness. Repeatedly. Again, just like the businessman: Hello asshole, just because you're not talking doesn't mean the phone isn't ON! I'll be sure to be wringing this kid's neck as well when we're plummeting to our doom.
I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but I swear ever since 9/11, the popular words of the mainstream media are Tragedy and Rock. "High School Tragedy," "Space Shuttle Tragedy," "Penile Dysfunction Tragedy" ... You've seen all of these headlines. Maybe. Thanks to the slam-it-down-your-throat sensationalistic journalism we have today, you can't escape the word "tragedy" as hard as you try. Personally, I think that word is better suited for one of those awful Lifetime specials featuring some ugly blonde pathetic ever-crying woman who somehow managed to lose her baby while shopping at Wal-Mart. But the main basis of this rant will be the word "rock." I am so sick of that friggin word. I was so happy to see the end of the so-called Iraq War (otherwise known as GW plays Cowboys and Indians and wastes millions of dollars landing a plane on a huge boat) because to me this represented the end of the phrase "Bomb(s) rock(s) Name of City/Building/Person." However, thanks to the geniuses who can't get enough of shit blowing up, it's back with a vengeance. Bombs have rocked Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Gaza, and even Yale. The only thing that should be rocking at Yale is one's GPA or one's obtrusive roommate's bunkbed. But none of us want to really hear about it. If there is a bomb going off somewhere in the world today, I can guarantee you it's rocking something. (Begin screaming here) WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU "JOURNALISTS?" AREN'T YOU PAID TO COME UP WITH BETTER WORDS EACH TIME YOU WRITE? JESUS! (End Screaming) It used to be that rocking wasn't such a bad thing. One could "rock da house" without having set off a f'n bomb. One could "rock her (or his) world." One could say "dude, that rocks" and not mean that an explosive device had detonated in one's pants. Well it could have, but that's another story. One could even have "rocked the bathroom" but I don't want to get into that. And whatever happened to rock music, anyway? Now it's just a bunch of sissies in masks and makeup throwing microphones around pretending that they have a point other than just whining about how some bomb rocked some freaking church in Baghdad. Well actually they just whine basically about how they were complete losers in high school and never got over it. What are our journalists getting paid for anyway? Obviously not creativity. Just look at Jason Blayne (however that's spelled). I'm willing to bet that bastard isn't very different from the other journalists out there. He was just the one who got caught. Since no one can seem to make a headline these days without the word "rock" in it, I'm sure he's not the only one ripping stories from everyone else. In fact, I swear I saw a headline on the Boston Metro: "Kitten rocks litterbox: family alarmed." Speaking of rocking, I think I'm gonna go rock some Cola.
In my feverish search for more Matrix: Reloaded news today, I came across this wonderful tribute to the stupidity of the American people. It seems that albinos have been persecuted in mainstream entertainment media for well-nigh half a century! Well sh*t on a stick, they gone done it again, Martha! First it was Native Americans, then it was black people, then it was men with moustaches (slowly morphed into men with sunglasses), and now it's white people. Really white people.
Now I don't know about you, but does it seem likely that even by mentioning a certain arbitrary racial/ethnic classification I will get someone all fired up and offended? Next thing I know, I'll have some advocacy group on my ass: the "Native American Black People with Moustaches and Sunglasses for Justice" group(NABPMSJ for short). Believe me, I am very aware that there are some very basic lines of offense that should not be crossed in any media, but I have often struggled with the idea that people are just too easily offended these days. For instance, white men who get angry because their jobs are threatened by (gasp!) people of a different background! You'll have to read the article I mentioned above about albinos to get what I'm really talking about...but please. Have you ever seen an albino in a villian's role? The only movie I've even seen with an albino was Powder and I don't believe there were villianous albinos in that. There was just a lightning-shootin' albino. And that was just plain cool.
I guess my point is get something real to whine about. Who in their right mind would actually get up enough energy to be offended by some white-dredlocked bad-guys? Don't you have something better to gripe about? Was there a support group for offended white men when every single white guy in The Godfather was a villian? You didn't hear complaints from clown-faced pasty white people when The Joker capered around in Batman, did you? Did sharp-nosed green women cry and moan when the Wicked Witch of the West set the Scarecrow on fire? That was pretty badass, by the way.
I know what you're thinking: that I'm an insensitive clod. That it's easy for me to talk when I am very white and very much in a majority group and am sheltered. But in fact, right now I am thinking "OH SH*T, the bad guy Biff in Back to the Future was a middle-class white guy...HEY they're saying white guys are all villians! Time to get PISSED OFF!" Seriously though, come on, toughen up people! I really doubt that the producers of Reloaded were sitting at the storyboard saying "Gee, albino people are pretty evil folks. Let's make some villians out of them and really piss some people off!" If I roll my eyes any more, they might roll out of my head.
You're also probably saying "Gee, if he's gonna rail on people who whine, maybe he should shut up too." Well, I have a webpage to do it on so nyaaaah.
This is an email I received this morning. It reflects the general state of my inbox on a Monday morning. Oh my God. Read on...and you will be sure to find a rant at the bottom.
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This is awesome....might want to grab a tissue before you read this one!
HIGHWAY 109
A drunk man in an Oldsmobile
They said had run the light
That caused the six-car pileup
On 109 that night.
When broken bodies lay about
And blood was everywhere,
The sirens screamed out elegies,
For death was in the air.
A mother, trapped inside her car,
Was heard above the noise;
Her plaintive plea near split the air:
"Oh, God, please spare my boys!"
She fought to loose her pinned hands;
She struggled to get free,
But mangled metal held her fast
In grim captivity.
Her frightened eyes then focused
On where the back seat once had been,
But all she saw was broken glass and
Two children's seats crushed in.
Her twins were nowhere to be seen;
She did not hear them cry,
And then she prayed they'd been thrown free,
"Oh, God, don't let them die!"
Then firemen came and cut her loose,
But when they searched the back,
They found therein no little boys,
But the seat belts were intact.
They thought the woman had gone mad
And was traveling alone,
But when they turned to question her,
They discovered she was gone.
Policemen saw her running wild
And screaming above the noise
In beseeching supplication,
"Please help me find my boys!
They're four years old and wear blue shirts;
Their jeans are blue to match."
One cop spoke up, "They're in my car,
And they don't have a scratch.
They said their daddy put them there
And gave them each a cone,
Then told them both to wait for Mom
To come and take them home.
I've searched the area high and low,
But I can't find their dad.
He must have fled the scene,
I guess, and that is very bad."
The mother hugged the twins and said,
While wiping at a tear,
"He could not flee the scene, you see,
For he's been dead a year."
The cop just looked confused and asked,
"Now, how can that be true?"
The boys said, "Mommy, Daddy came
And left a kiss for you.
He told us not to worry
And that you would be all right,
And then he put us in this car with
The pretty, flashing light.
We wanted him to stay with us,
Because we miss him so,
But Mommy, he just hugged us tight
And said he had to go.
He said someday we'd understand
And told us not to fuss,
And he said to tell you, Mommy,
He's watching over us."
The mother knew without a doubt
That what they spoke was true,
For she recalled their dad's last words,
"I will watch over you."
The firemen's notes could not explain
The twisted, mangled car,
And how the three of them escaped
Without a single scar.
But on the cop's report was scribed,
In print so very fine,
An angel walked the beat tonight
On Highway 109.
"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare ." Just repeat this prayer and see how God moves!!
" Lord, I love you and I need you. Come into my heart, and bless my family, my home, my friends and me. In Jesus' name. Amen."
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What is this tearjerking CRAP? When I receive junk like this, I realize that this is why "compassionate conservative" GW Bush is in office. Because "Bible-Banging" freaks like whoever wrote this got up and got to the voting block. How sad. The fact that someone would actually spend the time to come up with this filth absolutely blows my mind. I've seen better storylines on Lifetime. Hell, I've seen better on PAX. I am reaching the point of speechlessness due to the idiocy of this email forward. I briefly considered cursing my friends by forwarding this wonderful gem on, but alas, I didn't have the heart. It would simply be too evil of me to curse them like this. I'm all for freedom of religion and expression, but it's born-again garbage like this that really gets me going. Do people actually believe this tripe? Whether or not you believe in God or a higher power is your business, but if you believe in this spirituality business in such a touchy-feely new-age cheesiness sort of way, get out of my way. AND STAY OUTTA MY INBOX!
*ahem*
Today I was dealt yet another swift blow to the wallet thanks to my wonderful girlfri-er...car Noriko. I had my tires changed from winter tires to "summer rubber." As Ryan says, it's a wonderful thing, this New England seasonal stuff, that forces you to have two sets of good tires or one set (all season) that is crappy in all weather. Regardless, I came to realize that it costs nearly as much just in labor to replace tires as it does to buy 4 new tires. Here comes my country bumpkin background, rearing its ugly head. You see, this is the first time I've actually had tires changed. Before that, I would do it out in Plainfield, MA which is even more in the middle of nowhere than Ashfield. And I swore it was like $10 per tire. The "upgrade" of moving from Ashfield to Boston has increased my per-tire spending from an estimated $10 to about $30. In addressing this issue, I note that just about everything under the sun in this city contains a roughly similar markup. Take an apartment in Ashfield. Justin (another one) pays I believe $500/month for the entire first floor of a house. Granted it's in ... funky ... shape, but it's still $500/month. Including utilities. Now skip to Boston. One would probably pay $500/month (not including utilities) for a ROOM in the same quality first floor of a house. Don't get me wrong. I love living in the city. Everything is accessible and there's a lot more to do. But then comes the crux: so much to do, NO MONEY. A "pint" of beer costs $4+ at the average bar. And then there's the pimpin clothes you've gotta wear, the ride, the prostitutes...I'm getting ahead of myself. But the whole point I'm making is one that everyone already knows: the city is f'n expensive. But what are you gonna do about it, anyway. I'm gonna eat my $10 lunch and shut up.
While I'm hot on the subject (and at work, no less), I'll fill you in on this heinous crime against society. As you probably know, PDA represents Public Display of Affection. Transit PDA is therefore PDA in a medium of public transportation. My first unfortunate experience with this plague was in Geneva, Switzerland. Now Geneva is right on the border of France, where not participating in PDA is probably considered a crime. However, it was the first time that my nice New England boy sensibilities were thoroughly challenged by a young couple getting bizay on the train. Don't get me wrong, people in love makes me warm and fuzzy all over like other people... But I don't wanna see it. And you know that Transit PDA is almost alwasys performed by a fugly couple. And so there you are, stuck on a train or a bus or something, in other words, a sealed compartment, and these naffy people are going at it. Does anyone really want to see not only your lips locked and limbs intertwined, but also your dredlocks sharing bugs? I think not! And when you're on Public Transit, you can rarely fully ignore these people because the compartment is so small and somehow said naffy couple is taking up twice as much room as they should. The reason I rant about this today is because I see it on the T all the time. It's always on my way home too. The last thing I really want to see after a long day of work is a pair of gorillas groping each other. Get a f'n room! I'm sure you've all seen it. Now write your congressperson and ban it! Unless, of course, you are participating. Then, uh...you go, girl.
Actually, don't expect the ROTD to actually be daily. Though I may have something to rant about just about every day (quite easy!), I just don't have enough time in the day to rant enough...and then write about it. I envision in this section a blatant rip of the Ranting Swede from "Sheep in the Big City." Picture a funny-looking blond guy with a funny voice howling about something or other. You have the Ranting Swede or you have me, either way. The next ROTD will see me explaining "Transit PDA." Stay tuned.