Taste the Icy Cucumber

Ahh, the botched audition, a time-honored tradition to which I am already growing too accustomed ... and my summer is off to a great start. If you give me a speaking role, usually I`m good to go, but when you`re like the guys tonight and you give me a camera on a tripod and say, "You are sports photographer," all you really get from me is a squinty look on my face while I madly swivel around hitting the (devastatingly silent) shutter button like I`m playing Diablo. What else could I do? How do you embellish that role? "I should have squinted harder. Or, less." Less is more, so they (mostly short guys) say. At tomorrow`s audition maybe I`ll just stand there and do nothing. Actually, tomorrow`s part is for -- wait for it, wait for it -- a baseball player again, and standing around in a baseball uniform has kept me alive for the past few months, so ... let`s just hope it doesn`t create any conflicts of interest. Actually, if you`ll forgive what is probably some kind of blogging faux pas (though I`ve done it before), I think I enunciated the situation pretty clearly today in this excerpt from one of the coolest emails I`ve ever written:

you know how every type of job you could possibly have always devolves into these damned Machiavellian games of politics and protocol, right? You know in Japan it`s like that TIMES A THOUSAND? The same applies for this thing I call a job, this business of going to auditions and mugging and shouting out slogans for the camera, which seems simple enough, until you take into account the fact that I`m registered with 3 different agencies, all of whom hate each other of course .. the problem arises when 2 agencies offer you the same job, and you have to pick one to go with and snub the other. It`s a problem because you can`t just tell the other company "oh, I`m busy that day," because they WILL see you at the audition, whether you`re with them or not. So you really have to basically tell one guy, "sorry, I`m going with the other guy," and then worry about how this will affect your relationship with the first guy. Christ, it`s an allegory for dating, only with dating you could then theoretically never see the first guy again. Not so here! The loser in this case in Company A, who got me the whole Mr. W___ [oh look, now I`m being all careful] thing all those months ago (but then cancelled all my jobs for the rest of the summer, so ... f#$% them), and I feel indebted to nonetheless. Tomorrow`s audition is for ... the part of a baseball player in some other commercial. So Company A gets all worried about it, since they think it`ll create a conflict of interest ("consumer confusion," they call it) with the Mr. W___ thing, even though that commercial has been off the air for months and I have no more events with [Corporation Z] -- he says I have some kind of "one year contract" with them but I didn`t sign shit and they`re not giving me any more gigs anyway -- is this boring to you? Too bad, I`m on a roll -- no time for proper punctuation -- and all day long he`s saying "please wait, we have to confirm with this guy, that guy, those other guys," and it`s all very Japanese and inefficient. Meanwhile Company B, whom I like exponentially better even though they have yet to get me an actual job, is just like, "yeah man, come on to the audition! Pay is ￥XXXXXX." To close this up, after "please wait a bit longer for response" message #5 or so from Company A, I said FOOK IT and responded to them with "please don`t worry about it anymore. I took the job from another agency," and then turned my phone on silent in preparation for the inevitable cacaphony of "what?? You can`t do that, we don`t know if it`s okay yet!!" calls from Company A, but ... eerily, no one has called yet. Unsettling!

Later I realized I had reponded to them at like 9:30PM, after they had inexplicably gone home. "You snooze = you lose," sure as I`m going to wake up in the morning to some frantic phone calls from Company A.

Anyway. Going to/bombing at auditions is only one part of my summer plan .. I mentioned it earlier but did not link to it with the enthusiasm I should have that I plan to read my ass off this summer, 7-year old at the public library-stylez, and I`m off to a pretty good start at that, as well. Sorry, PSP! I`ve got something like 55 hours logged on Gunpey-R and have yet to make it past level 17 more than once ... game has more than 40 levels. Time to draw a zigzagged, glowing line between "fun challenge" and "waste of precious life-hours." I did always justify rocking the PSP with excuses like "But I only play puzzle games! That means I`m thinking! Blarrgh! Argle!" but reading gives me less carpal tunnel in my thumbs, and in turn inspires me to write as opposed to throw things across the room, hence the 2 entries in 2 days, and more to probably come.

Summer Listening: I retract my earlier ho-hum assessment of the new QOTSA album "Era Vulgaris" and now demand that you all give it several listens, unless you hate things that are good. It grew on me to the point where I had to step back and force myself to stop listening to it over and over, lest I wear it out for myself in the first month. So, I grabbed the new Pig Destroyer (why are there 4 of them on that bio page, you might ask? They added a new guy to provide "noise." Because Pig Destroyer was not noisy enough until this) album as well, which I would recommend to approximately 2 of you. We`ll show those pigs! Now who`s the pig??

Bonus: Summer Dining: Bentou GO!



I used to think I hated bentou, but I realized that`s because if you`re eating bentou during work, as was usually the case, you`re probably eating it every day for at least a week straight, and it is probably one of those cold, day-old jawns from the convenience store. This one I got tailor-made! I was like, I want that コロッケ!!

Moving along ...

Woozle wuzzle?

That`s me, up on stage in my baseball uniform before a non-receptive and bored audience, one last time this coming weekend. That`s right -- Mr. White is officially getting retired as of the beginning of July. R.I.P., Whitey ... it was a fun, bewildering and surprisingly long 15 minutes.

Where does that leave me? Going back to auditions, getting rejected left and right, doing 1-second-of-screen-time extra parts in TV shows for $300 a pop? Wasting night after night spending money on coffee, booze and game centers with similarly depressed friends, watching my meager savings and (also meager) prospects of any sort of substantial future slip away, nay, continue to slip away till I end up in a blue-tarp community by the age of 30? Not entirely unrealistic at this rate if I don`t change my course of action .. as Ngoc said once, "You need a curveball."

As I usually do when I need to think things through, last week I took off from the home base and traveled around for a few days. Nowhere glamorous, just caught a bus over to Kansai and hit up my old hang-out spots in Nagoya, Yokkaichi and Osaka ...


Thoughts! Sidetracked! I was going somewhere with this, too. Moral of the trip was, I need to move out of Tokyo. Probably sometime around the end of this summer. In the meantime, instead of worrying about how to "get in shape" this summer like I`d been doing, I`m going to read, study Japanese in preparation for the 日本語能力試験（２級） (and Portuguese in case I should someday end up in Brazil), and look for a job back over in the Kansai area, where I have more than 2 friends and can play some good Capoeira for a change. And in the more immediate meantime, I actually have somewhat of a busy day tomorrow, the first I`ve had in .. months, so I`m going to leave you for now ... hope all is well, and if it isn`t, that you`re doing something about it.

And so, blogging

Like a pigeon twirling around and fluffing his feathers, trying to impress the ladies, or even better, this bird of paradise (watch that now ... seriously), I find myself going back to the gym of late. Actually, that`s not the reason at all, considering the only things I could do to attract more female attention over here involve getting even paler and speaking less Japanese ... mostly I`m going because I`ve been on a get-yo-ass-in-shape kick since hanging out at the beach in Spain, plus the fact that I haven`t worked in almost 2 weeks and have penty of time during the day.

Not wanting to have to do any research, I took the easy route and headed down to the Gold`s Gym in Nakano, about a 25-30 minute walk from my apartment (I may buy a bicycle tomorrow ... hey cool, that`s a total non-sequitir) knowing full well that their monthly membership which allows you access to any of the several Gold`s Gym locations in Tokyo costs over $100, not including a $50 sign-up fee ... I was like "screw it," they have a lot of good equipment, something you can`t find in any other gym I`ve been to in Japan, where they don`t put so much priority on "lifting weights" as they do on swimming pools, massage machines and various "health-spa"-esque nonsense ... I may have complained about this before, either in person or via the old Eponym blog from which I am no longer able to access anything. Anyway, so I get to Gold`s and find out they want 2 months` payment up-front .. only having brought $300 with me, suddenly my "screw it, I`m joining" turns into a "screw it, I don`t need this stupid place," and I excuse myself and angrily huff over to Freshness Burger to fume over some beef. While I`m sitting there, I glance through the info they`ve given me, hoping to find some kind of a cheaper package that isn`t completely worthless, or a loophole or something, and the only thing that catches my eye is the 2-week trial which goes for like 6000 Yen, or around $50 ... ever living in the moment, I finished my hamburger and went right back to sign up for 2 weeks, because really, I just want to lift weights now. Who knows where I`ll be in 3 weeks? If I`m still here when that runs out, I`ll either decide to make the upgrade, or find something else to do, like a boxing gym, which there are a lot of in Tokyo and seems like a lot of fun, based on the fact that I enjoy punching things (and, to an alarmingly similar degree, being punched).

Actually the Gold`s is already starting to annoy me ... the equipment is great and I feel really good even after just a week, but, you (may have) guessed it, the people there are irritating as hell. Now in Japan, weight lifting is not fashionable. Young models here are waifish as hell, so that`s the look most people go for, and thanks to the diet here, it`s pretty easy to attain. Older people, on the other hand, are 1000% harder than the young generation, so the only (Japanese) people you`ll find lifting weights in their spare time are at least in their mid-forties .. some of them look to be at least 60, which is really weird looking when they`re huge and tan. And like the huge/tan guys you`ll find at gyms in the US, here they also spend most of their time throwing around more weight than they can handle correctly, and screaming. Also, they massage each other a lot on the stretching mats. I don`t know, maybe I happened to join the gay branch of Gold`s Gym accidentally. Either way, looking at these overcooked, puffed-up geezers in their string-strap tanktops and short shorts doesn`t exactly inspire me to lift ... it mostly makes me want to leave.

So that`s all I have to say about the gym .. which is unfortunate because I`ve been doing almost nothing else for the past week or so, which leaves me with little else to write about. Best night I had was last weekend when I went to Roppongi with Dante, and instead of blowing thousands of yen on dance clubs and going home with a handful of numbers we never intend to call, for some reason we just went to the all-night Starbucks, sat in front of the window, drank coffee and made fun of people till 5 in the morning. It was just what I needed! When I`m with Warao all we do is eat conveyor belt sushi and play this ridiculously addictive 2Spicy game ... fun, but maybe some high-level unfulfilling.

Ugh. Other than the exercise, I`m in a bit of an unproductive, lethargic rut ... so what else is new. I`m listening to both the new Neurosis and QOTSA albums ... the first is really good, the second, only pretty (good). Maybe neither is appropriate listening for trying to motivate oneself. What`s some good motivational music??

El regreso del Sr. Blanco

Crap. Why is your head always filled with ideas until the moment you`re confronted with a blank sheet of paper or text field? So many things to say and no idea where to start or how to put them in order ...

I "came home" to Tokyo (that still feels weird) on Friday, after the 10-day Spain trip made awesome by Jared, Marta and the strangers of Barcelona. People had been telling me I woudn`t want to come back here, and I believed them, and it turned out to be true. Maybe it`s just the allure of the beach, or the laid-back people, or the abundance of delicious shawarma, or .. yeah, pretty much everything about the place. In the end I came back because I have a job here that is (usually) pretty sweet.

"Coming back for work" seems like a weird thing to say as well, considering what I do, but literally I had to come back last Friday so I could go do this job in Fukuoka over the weekend, which combined my usual Fukuoka jobs of 1) appearance at the Yahoo! Dome and 2) TV show with the handicapped artist kids. You know how they did this? Instead of getting breaks I`d just bounce back and forth from one thing to the other. So I`d go outside and get mobbed by people with boring lives for an hour, then come inside and try to understand what the hell the handicapped kids were saying to me in front of TV cameras for an hour. And so on, all day. Meanwhile, Dante just filmed a new commercial, bringing his count up to like 10 or something and leaving me with my measly 3 which I don`t think are even shown on TV anymore. The thing that didn`t make sense to me, though, was that his most recent commercial was for the new thing called the White Family Plan. What the hell, shouldn`t that be mine?? Annoying .. his agency gets him new commercials and mine just keeps sending me to the same events over and over again.

Wait, that`s not annoying ... this is. You remember Blues Jet, the crazy guy who lived upstairs from me, gave me all his furniture and an old musty bed, asks me to lend him money every time he talks to me, got kicked out of the apartment and moved into a church up the street (with the minister`s permission), and one day plans to kill himself so he can go to hell and fight with Satan? I`m back at my place for like 15 minutes before he comes knocking at my door again on Friday (he can see when I`m home because I have the lights on, and he still knows the keycode to get into the building) ... this time instead of asking for money, he tells me that the minister kicked him out of the church, threw all his luggage out into the street and called the cops on him. I`ve met the minister; he`s like the nicest guy in the world. Blues Jet ... not so much. But he looks distraught, and he goes "I have no place to stay. I don`t know what to do." I`m not about to invite him to crash at my place, but I am considering letting him in to sit down and think about it for a few minutes, until he goes, "I didn`t even do anything bad ... I should kill that fucker." I told him there was nothing I could do and shut the door in his face. Time to move ...

I didn`t mean to go off for so long on the Blues Jet thing, but I was thinking about him the other night and what role he plays in my life, like, what is the reason for the presence of this character, and I think I got it: the guy is 40, still dresses like a punk-rocker in his 20s, has no job, no money, no place to live ... oh yeah! That`s me in 14 years or so if I don`t start to grow up a bit. That`s another catch to living here doing odd jobs (as most foreigners do) for an extended period of time ... you have no future. I just realized the other day that since quitting the last job and moving to Tokyo, I`ve been here for almost 8 months. Even that`s a pretty long time to spend doing nothing! Time to "level up" at "useful skills." And I guess by that I mean go to Ikebukuro and eat sushi with Warao.

Sushi: short-term cure for the existential blues!