What Do You Get...

When you combine 1.) a guy who purposely dresses like an old man, to the point of dying his hair grey, wearing suspenders, etc. 2.) a bassist who's main source of income is soft-core pornography and 3.) a moustache that might just challenge the throne that has forever been held by Mr. Tom Selleck?

I'll tell you what you get - the ultimate, groovy power of 中学生棺桶!!

Hm...

So, yeah, I'm still a bit bitter at being in Miyako, but of course I can deal. However, I did just apply for another company (actually turns out to be the same company that's picking up the elementary contracts in Miyako this coming school year), and while if hired I'd be taking a pay-cut of 10K Yen (~$100) a month, some of their locations are open "immediately," and one is in Ageo City, Saitama Prefecture, which is about a 40 minute train ride from Ueno station on Tokyo's Yamanote line. THAT is an awesome fucking placement. I figure with all the money I spend on getting somewhere interesting, hotels, etc. in order to have fun while living in Miyako, if I'm living in a city that itself is pretty big (~220,000 people) that is also near Tokyo, I can start spending less money on more important things than travel expenses. Plus, Saitama's capital, Saitama City, is PGH's sister-city and who knows, maybe I could get onto something with that. I've got 20 days until recontracting, so while I'm cutting it wicked close, I'm a bit hopeful that 100x more fun is in my near future.

Oh, plus, Interac took me off my favorite school (Miyako Kita, the one full of all the bad kids) and is now throwing me at Tanohata, about an hour to an hour and a half and (I'm guessing) ~1500 yen/trip away, for 2 days a week. Fucking hell.

Back & Forth

Miyako represents a truly awesome paradigm change for me. I can't call PGH a "big city," but it sure as hell ain't a small one, and having grown up there with its relative wealth things to do during both the daytime and nighttime, moving out here has proven something of a... not so much a challenge, but rather... aw, fuck it, call shit what it is - Miyako is a challenge. In any given week, I'm likely to change my opinion of it at least twice (basically ranging from either "I like Miyako" to "Fuck 'dis noise"), and I'm back on my dissatisfaction game of late. There's a lot of superficial interaction going on here, but nothing too much of substance... that I've experienced yet, anyway. Here's the main problem I'm obsessing over right now: there doesn't seem to be much hanging out going on. In its place are a bunch of club activities, and while I appreciate structure, I'm definitely the kind of generally structureless dude, so far as plans are concerned, who doesn't want to meet people via structured activity. Unfortunately, that seems to be the main means through which socializing is conducted here: I've participated in a break-dance troupe, a volleyball team, and some other collectives, but it didn't yield much more than both parties coming closer to the ideological wall that is established between big-city (and foreign) people and those living in a place such as this. Thing is, I'd much rather decide on what the hell it is I want to do on a given/afternoon/evening via whatever fickle whims I'm entertaining at the moment (granted, that usually revolves around music, whether playing with others, listening to, or going to a show). Miyako will not allow that of me, especially concerning my main interests in extreme genres of music. Self-actualization, unadulterated, anyway, is a bit of a problem for a guy like me in a place like this. Hence, this back and forth attitude I've developed towards my current city of residence - when I can appreciate the laid back lifestyle, with the absolutely gorgeous scenery around me, and totally cheap cost of most everything, I'm cool with it... but then I start thinking about what it is I'm actually interested in ,what I like to do, what I want to pursue, and I see Miyako as a singular dead-end.

When I try balancing these facts out, I say to myself that Miyako, on the positive end, affords me a relatively cheap (though I won't get into specifics) lifestyle, a chance to study my ass off, and to experience the Japan that isn't corporatized as of yet, but honestly I am only secondarily concerned with those things: living in a spot where I can entertain my actual callings (music, concerts, legit intellectualism, etc.) might be more expensive, but god damn it what is the point of not pursuing that? Hell, that's why I stuck with what I loved to study in college, because I wasn't so much concerned with getting a "money-making" degree as I was with going after what I actually found interesting. It seems to me like Miyako is a kind of purgatory for me, offering the possibility of later on moving into a space that offers me growth and like-mindedness amongst peers, while throwing me a pill that is fucking hard to swallow on each day I am here.

I'm gonna stop there cause I'm about to start really going off on Miyako, and I'd like to keep these opinions at least relatively buried for a bit longer. Suffice to say, I have already submitted a number of applications to jobs in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto.

Recent & Upcoming Events

Soooooo... looks like starting tomorrow I don't have work till the 15th of next month. Funny how I wasn't really aware of this 'spring break' I've got, considering how substantial it is - I knew there was some little break thing coming up, but especially considering my company tends to send me elsewhere on work days, I wasn't really expecting to receive much of a break. Well, I was wrong, cause it looks like I'm about to embark on approximately 1 month of break time.

I think I'll be going to Korea for a bit.

Why, I mean, outside of 'Christ, I live in fucking Asia - I'm surrounded by foreign countries'? A good friend of mine lives near Busan, and he informs me that up until this point his experience there has been cheap, enormously entertaining, and largely carefree. Plus, I'm assuming he'll put me up, so that takes care of (not) paying for a hotel. Granted, I've got my after-school English teaching class every Monday, so I can probably, at most, stay 7 or 8 days (though that's unlikely, for not only am I not that rich, but I'd also rather not mess with the schedule we've established), but presumably that's more than enough time to visit a lot of cool shit in a country so small, all despite the fact that I know very little about it.

In other news, I was walking home last night and ended up... I hesitate to say rescue... assisting the most pathetically dead-drunk person I've seen in a while. This chick was so blasted she was asleep in the fucking street. That's no lie - cars were going around her... it was dangerous to say the least. Given how she and her friend were dressed, I'm assuming they are employed at one of the many local hostess bars. This is a distinctly Japanese phenomenon where men pay to talk to, and buy drinks for, women dressed for a club. Make no mistake, this is not a sex industry (so far as I'm aware, anyway - I've never been because, more than anything, I'm not cripplingly shy around women), but it does highlight the fact that enough dudes lead such dreadfully, painfully lonely lives such that necessitates this kind of establishment. Or maybe I just don't get it. Anyway, regardless of the culture surrounding Hostess Clubs (which, by the way, tend to be called 'Snack's or 'Pub's, so be careful), I figure they had a pretty god damn good night of customers to be that loaded...

Entertain me for a second - seriously, what upstanding gentleman buys a lady so many drinks that she's sleeping in the fucking street and doesn't have the courtesy to call a cab or walk her home/get someone to walk her home (This is rural Japan and people watch. Even if you have the most pure of intentions, there will be those that see and assume the worst, and report that to others)? Moreover, what company, especially one which makes its money specifically off of women getting men to buy them and to drink themselves absurdly marked up booze, doesn't call a cab for an employee that presumably just earned the company some pretty hefty profits who is so totally fucked up?

The more I write about this, the more I question whether or not they were Hostess Club employees and not just 2 chicks who had entirely too much 'fun' on a tuesday night...

Anyways, her friend was hanging about, but couldn't really do much in her not-as-intoxicated state with her friend's dead weight, so I helped carry this girl over to a corner and insisted her friend call a cab, only leaving when she had the phone to her ear. In retrospect, I probably should've waited for the cab to come, but considering how small Miyako is, and where the cab dispatch is located in relationship to where this event occured, I feel pretty safe in saying they got home alright.

Anyways, at least she wasn't sleeping in the street anymore.

P.S. - I have decided to build a fort this summer. In the woods, near the ocean. Ala the Zappler fort, but infinitely more awesome. I hope I can find a generator, becuase then I can bring an amp up there and jam to the ocean in the middle of wilderness isolation. Dream big or go home, I say.

New Ink, Old Ink, Whatever.

Got re-inked on saturday at noon. Whole deal took about two hours, and I gotta say... this shit is fucking AWESOME. I'm still healing up (aka saran wrap and petroleum jelly) so I'll be holding off on taking pictures for a bit, but I'll post some once she's ready for a debut.

The experience itself was interesting though. Getting inked in Japan is much more intimate than the American analog. The store front itself wasn't anything to gawk at, but once yr actually in the "chair" its wholly different form America. I say "chair" because there is no chair - once I was lead to the business end of the store, I entered a very small "room" partitioned off by rice-paper walls (Anyone who's been to a Japanese restaurant knows exactly what I'm talking about) and was asked to lie down. The whole ordeal took place while lying on the floor. The artist, Hirohide (trained in Tokyo!) sat seiza-style (sitting with your legs tucked underneath you) on a zabuton (seat-pillow) for the whole thing, using a seemingly hand-made gun. In America, I might be a bit worried upon seeing something like that, but in Japan, and especially concerning tattooing, your job is your art and so I have the exact opposite reaction... if this is not uncommon, then I guess Japanese tattoo artists are kind of like Jedi, what with making their own tools and all.

Whatever the case, the result is un-fucking-believeable. This guy knows his craft and I am 100% going back to him (I've scheduled a meeting with him in 2 weeks to discuss additional work). For example, when I first had this inked, the "artist" (compared to Hirohide she probably shouldn't even be in business) told me that the picture shouldn't be that hard EXCEPT for a braid in the woman's hair, that she couldn't do it. Hirohide didn't even mention it upon entering, but I figured I'd have to do without. WRONG. To my surprise, the microscopic braid was done just like everything else - perfectly. Dude is a magician.

Unfortunately, he doesn't do traditional Japanese "tebori" tattooing, but hey I figure I only need to get that done once and so this guy is definitely going to be getting a lot of my business.

End of the School Year

So my contract is up in about 21 days, though I plan on renewing. Miyako's definitely got its charm, and while I'd love to get back down to Tokyo, I've developed something of an appreciation for my students and coworkers that I'd like to see at least one class off after having taught them for a full year. Plus, I've decided to use Miyako as a training ground - due to its lack of anything particularly exciting (at least on a regular basis), I have developed a 3-part plan to complete before my resurgence in the Tokyo Underground. I've mentioned the money saving aspect, and previously mentioned a daily exercise routine I'm still on, and I've also mentioned the studying thing. So, in a nutshell, I'm going to get relatively rich, relatively cut, and relatively really fluent at Japanese over the course of the next year, so that when I actually do return to the city, it'll be totally obvious to even yet-unborn children that, indeed, my arrival heralds the second coming.

In essence, I will nuture my ego to a hitherto unknown, indeed unknowable, excess. Lets get cocky.

Moving on to more serious topics, yesterday was the graduation ceremony for Miyako HS. It was different. In the place of the beach balls and laughter I remember experiencing at my own High School graduation, it was a bunch of rather polite speeches and sleeping seniors. Mundane, sure, but also possessing a heavy element of austerity. Pristine, I think I'd call it, that is up until the end when 3 students donned some weird kind-of-octopus-looking hats and started screaming at their classmates whilst waving flags to a drum beat on top of a stand. Bad-ass is what I'd call that, bringing to mind the kind of arrogant but self-assured, and totally rousing, attitude of Toshiro Mifune's various samurai roles. Banzai for real, yo.

We had a party for us teachers later in the day at 530, and since I get off work at 4 and didn't want to be exercising way late into the night, I booked it home from school, did a mildly abridged version of my regular Tuesday regiment, showered, and re-dressed all in about 1.5 hours. The party itself was a bit pricey, 6000 Yen, but they are usually worth it - a spread of sashimi (mostly Maguro and, my favorite, Kampachi); Sukiyaki; prosciutto with lemon, tomatoes, and spinach; Chawanmushi (a kind of custard with fish and shrimp in it); an Oyster gratin; and, most notably, some fried stuff on a stick with barbeque sauce. And of course beer, sake, shochu, and uronhai were flowing freely - its incredibly important to learn how to pace yrself at these events because you will ALWAYS have a full glass, due to the custom of refilling each others glasses, ad infinitum ad nauseum. Even if youve literally taken 1 sip from yr full glass, people will offer to top you off, and of course you can't refuse. And if the bastards are feeling especially sneaky, they'll offer you an entirely new drink, which, once again, you can't refuse. Oh, and of course you also have to participate in this beer-tiquette, so not only do you have to keep an eye on how much you've drank of your own drink in order to ward off further attempts at refills, who hasn't yet refilled yr glass (as they are all wont to do), and which of yr glasses you've actually drank out of (in order to appease the pourer), you also have to play the part of server. Its exhausting, especially being a foreigner so that they are much more likely to wander by with the ubiquitous liter bottles of beer. I mostly succeeded at sticking to beer, but by the end of the party (around 830) I had 4, largely untouched, different drinks in front of me. Talk about a waste.

Anyway, it was a good time. I still haven't met probably half the staff here, so I'm always glad to attend these parties for the chance to get to know more of my coworkers. Except for one woman I work with (GOD DAMN is she cold) all the teachers I work with here at MHS have good senses of humor, and generally rather bright demeanors. Its strange that a lot of teachers are still surprised when I start speaking their language, considering I've been here for 4 months, but then again I don't know their names. Too bad. The night was passed with a whole bunch of pretty funny speeches, exchanging ideas for in-class as well as out-of-class lessons/interactions, and, of course, questions about America. Afterwards, I went home and watched The Wire.

Have you SEEN The Wire??

Oh, and starting next monday at 6 pm, I'll be teaching a wicked cute 27 year old nurse (hehehe) and her dad (...) english at their house on a weekly basis. So its a part-time job, and while I can always use more money, I'm mostly looking forward to the opportunity to get close to this family, which seems to be relatively affluent, as a way to squeeze myself in with the local crowd, as opposed to retaining my distinct foreign-ness/culturally-imposed distance. Plus I'll probably get a few home-cooked meals out of it.