Archive for September 2006
Happy Meat Day
September 30, 2006, 10:18 amIt’s September 30th and you know what that means! It’s Meat Day!
(Disclaimer: Yesterday was actually Meat Day)
Yes, today’s the day. It’s not exactly a recognized national holiday, we don’t get to stay at home from work and enjoy meat all day, but it almost is.
Back in the States, every day is Meat Day (in Japanese: “niku no hi”). A day doesn’t go by when each and every Jesus-loving, Saddam-hating American doesn’t endeavor to cram a watermelon sized portion of meat down his or her eat hole. But, here in Japan, where animal flesh is considered just one TYPE of food, it’s a special day.
What does Meat Day mean to me? Well, on Meat Day, I think we should all be thankful to those animals who gave their dumb animal lives so their human betters could have all the protein we need.
Animals don’t care about very much, they’re happy to just be animals and do animal things, but if they were blessed with our human thinkitivity capacity, they would be more than happy to shed this mortal coil so that their human caretakers and benefactors could feel sated and full.
This is the real meaning of Meat Day to me.
On Meat Day, I will always take my children to the nearest farm or slaughterhouse, and take my boy or girl up to the nearest cow, have them look right into it’s cowy eyes and say, “Thanks for the meat.”
Okay, I admit, I have no idea what Meat Day is, or why there is one. All I know is that some guy is driving around my neighborhood in a station wagon painted like a cow, with speakers mounted on top, blaring at an ear-shattering volume his Happy Meat Day tidings. Then, when I went to Chiba, there were all these guys and gals from the restaurants standing on the sidewalks screaming about the special Meat Day deals.
—Greg | no comments
(posted in the livin' category)
Got Freedom?
September 29, 2006, 12:25 amFussa, where the Magnatones played Saturday, is a wierd town. It’s one of the places where the US Air Force is located.
You see, Japan has the Self-Defense Forces, but they don’t have a real army. They have the only thing worse, and that’s the U. S. Army. Basically, these guys kick around Japan, do training or whatever, fly some planes around, start fights in bars and occasionally rape or kill some schoolgirls, and the taxpayers of Japan foot the bill. Sweet deal, huh?
You can tell there’s something wierd about Fussa when you get to the station. You see some gigantic, buzz-cut Americans walking around sticking out their chests and guts. One of the first things I saw was a guy calling his kid. I swear to Jesus, he said, “C’mere, Bubba.” Bubba. I haven’t seen one of those since I left Missouri. And a kid, no less.
But, you see lots of other foreign people too. I saw some Middle Eastern guys, a couple Southeast Asian ladies, some African guys. And there are a whole bunch of Tokyo rocker people that live here and have had a little scene here for quite a while. Apparently there have been some big shows in Fussa.
We were driving in Jackie’s car to the studio (which was part of a big karaoke/ entertainment complex) and I looked over and felt like I was right back in America again. At the side of the road there was a giant cement wall with barbed wire all over the top and a sign warning you in big red letters to fuck off. It was just like being back home again.
Marky said, “That’s an army facility.”
“Oh.” I said. “I thought it was a prison.”
Yeah, it was just like being back home. All that SECURITY everywhere. Top secret shit going on right beside the highway.
Like I mentioned before, at 11 Eddie’s Club turns into a disco. A bunch of Air Force people were arriving with their ladies. I was glad we left when we did.
I saw one guy with a hilarious t-shirt. It said, “Got Freedom?”
That cracked me up. I felt like saying, “YOU got freedom?” Fuck, I live in Japan now, so Yes.
—Greg | 2 comments
(posted in the rantin' category)
Guitar Tech
September 28, 2006, 10:25 amThe guitarist of Young Parisian broke a string. I went backstage to see who was there, and Fifi, Tomoko, Marky and Show were all hunched over his guitar trying to get the string off. It’s an old Gretsch.
Fifi was trying to put the high E on it and he had it all backwards. The place on the body where you put the string is like my guitar’s. You have to twist the end of the damn string (where it has a little loop) and carefully wrap it under the bar and hook it in, then keep it tight while you wind the string around, or else it will pop out. It’s a bitch. I always think of those chimpanzees who figured out how to carefully dip a twig into an anthole and get the ants to come out. Am I the only one who saw that National Geographic special?
“Let me handle it.” I said. “It’s the same as mine.”
I twisted the end of the string and put the loop over the peg. Then, Fifi held it while I wound the string. It was even more difficult to put on than mine is. It was hard to believe I was even in the same room as Fifi, of Firestarter and Teengenerate, much less putting on a guitar string with him.
Then, when we finished, he said, “Now, go onstage and give it to him.” Onstage??? “And hold it up like this.” He gestured, holding his hands up loftily into the air.
For some reason I don’t trust Fifi. He seems like the kind of guy who fucks with everybody for his own amusement, so I never know if he’s fucking with me or not.
So, I went. Tomoko took me to the backstage door. I was nervous as hell. I went out when they finished the song. I went out and said, “GEEE- TARRRR,” although my voice is still gone so nobody heard me.
I gave him the guitar and took Marky’s (that he was using while we were changing the string) and went back to the green room. Fifi patted me on the back and said, “That was a great job.”
A couple hours later, when Snazz were almost done with their set, Marky busted his A string. I pushed my way through the crowd and ran outside. I should have just gone on back to the green room, but I saw Fifi sitting there talking to somebody, drinking his giant Chu-hi.
In scattered, hastily-thrown together Japanese, I said, “Marky broke a string!”
Fifi stood up and said, “Let’s find him a guitar,” and we went back to the green room. “Where was that guitar from before?” he said, opening a guitar case. “Ah, here it is. You gotta take it out again.”
“Again?!” I really didn’t want to. He was taking the guitar out. It was that glittery Gretsch the guy from Young Parisian played, that we changed the string on. “Shouldn’t we ask that guy first?”
He handed me the Gretsch. “Nah, it’s okay.” Is Fifi fucking with me? Shouldn’t I ask the Young Parisian guy?
Now that I think about it, it is perfectly reasonable that the guy wouldn’t mind letting Marky use his guitar in this situation. It would only be one song, and then we’d have the string changed. But at the time, I was looking at Fifi and he was looking at me in a funny, sideways way with the cigarette dangling from his teeth and the Chu-hi in his other hand. There was something wierd about it all.
But fuck it.
Pretty soon, Takeshima USA was at the door. He started to get his guitar. Then, the Young Parisian guy was there. He said to go ahead.
There was no choice. I weakly suggested it would be cooler if Fifi took it on stage, but he insisted. He was patting me on the back and everything, chuckling and carrying on. Already this had all taken too long, so I went for the stage door.
And just then, Marky came out. I handed him the guitar. That was it, I was saved.
—Greg | no comments
(posted in the rockin' category)
Everything Is Wrong Since I Last Saw You, Baby
September 27, 2006, 10:46 pmWe were playing “Come On” by Chuck Berry and that’s a tough motherfucker to sing. Besides that, I had totally lost my voice because of my cold, so it took all I could to croak those lyrics and not spit phlegm all over the mic and the people dancing in the front of the crowd.
So, while I’m trying to sing “Come On” and it’s taking every little bit of concentration I can muster, a girl in the front row starts smiling and laughing at me, and blinking her eyes flirtatiously. It was really throwing off my concentration. What was she trying to do anyway??
I’m trying not to notice, and just concentrate on the words and cranking what’s left of my voice out. This girl is standing right in front of me laughing and winking and carrying on and it’s really ruining my concentration but I can’t ignore her. I’m trying to think about each line before the line comes up. Chuck Berry really packed a lot of words into that song. And she’s messing me up.
Then, I realized why she was laughing. I was playing the wrong chords. The really wrong chords. At practice before the show, we changed the key from G to A because it suited my voice better (that was back when I HAD a voice). So I was playing a G when everybody else was playing an A, and an E minor when everybody else was playing an F# minor. It was roaring discordantly out of my amp and she was standing right in front laughing.
Oops.
Later, I saw the same girl sitting across the bar with some guy, and she was laughing at me again, right when she was talking to the other guy. That sucker, I thought. I cursed her under my breath.
—Greg | no comments
(posted in the rockin' category)
They Found Me
September 27, 2006, 11:50 amToday, when I got on the train to Tsuga at Chiba Station, I saw a lady walking around giving everybody flyers.
This is pretty unusual. Usually, people will hand out flyers and stuff outside the station, but I’ve never seen anybody walking around inside the train shoving flyers in everybody’s face. I figured I was safe. I’ll just pull the old “Me no speaka Japanese” routine and be done with it.
I got lucky. She passed me right by and went to everybody else. Nobody was interested in whatever it was she was harassing everybody with. That should have been a sign right there.
After I thought she’d left, there she was right in front of me. She was a middle aged lady in a non-descript dress with glasses. She asked me in English, “What is your country?”
I said, “Japan.”
She stood there a minute. Then she said, “What country are you from?”
I said, “America.” Then, I noticed she had some little handbills printed in Korean with some pictures of clouds and shit on them.
Then she said, “Nihongo dekiru? (can you speak Japanese.)”
“Not really.” I said.
“Are you Christian?” She said. I should’ve known.
I said, “No.”
Then, in Japanese, she said, “Demo, amerika ni wa ippai iru desho? (but there are a lot in America, right)” While she said this, she shoved one of her handbills with the clouds and shit and Korean writing in my face. She let it fall onto my lap.
“Yeah, but not me.” I said and picked it up and shoved it back at her. She stood and kept staring at me for a second, kind of astonished, kind of like she was going to say something else, and I said forcefully, “NO THANKS.”
That did the trick and she was gone. But the creepy feeling remained.
I’m not safe anywhere.
—Greg | 1 comment
(posted in the livin' category)
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