The Hateful Button

The crossing nearest to my home has this button and I hate this button with the fire of 1000 suns. The reason I have intense hate for that button is because it only works when it feels like it. One time I had to push the button three times to get it to go into ‘a human wants to cross here now’ mode. Thrice! I don’t know if this happens to other people. I think the button could be a racist.

So today I was coming back from the Toho down the street and I got to the crossing. I pushed the button and then took about three steps to the right to wait at the curb to cross. (If that seems oddly specific just wait, it’s important.)

I’m listening to my iPod, gazing into the distance, gently swinging my bag of groceries back and forth in the way that my wife finds so frustrating (But don’t worry she wasn’t there, so she doesn’t know I was- oh.) Anyway, it takes a couple of seconds, but I finally notice there is not a single goddamn car on the road or even visible in the distance. Because this button and I have words before, I gazed back at it. My inherent distrust of the button told me something was up, but the worst part of it is that it has two little red panels. They’re all in Japanese! Japanese is not my strong suit. Basically, when one of them is lit, it means the button is preparing to safely deliver you across the road. When the other one is lit it means go fuck yourself, chump, you didn’t push me hard and/or frequently enough to make me bother with you. When the top option is lit, which of the two things I just described is happening? Here’s the kicker: I don’t know. Now you’re saying to yourself, “but surely you cross that thing every other day and you could just remember which is which based on past experience, right?” Wrong. This little detail lives in the portion of my brain that decides which facts are immediately purged from my brain in favor of things like the years in which the Foo Fighters released albums.

So I’m wondering whether I should take three steps to push the button or just step on out into that road and roll the dice, baby. Cos I’m an outlaw! But then the situation ramps up a notch.

Old lady walks out form the little alley closest to the crossing. My reptilian brain tells me she’s gonna cross, you douchebag. What happens when she gets to the crossing?! You’ve gotta do something! I can’t just reach out and casually push the button like I just got there, because I foolishly moved away from it. Way I see it, I’ve got two choices: A) dash in front of her to push the button, thus showing her I knew the button needed pushing but maybe coming off a little crazy, or B) what I call the Men’s urinal play - stare straight ahead and whistle quietly while things that I hope to avoid are happening to the side of me. In this case she pushes the button for both of us.

I went with option B. The lady gets to the crossing, looks at me, looks at the button and then looks at me very obviously while she pushes the button.

“That button is a piece of shit,” I mumble at her. Then I use my longer legs power to stride away ahead of her. But I can never outstride my shame. 

Politenessball: A Primer

Wrote this yesterday. Publishing it today. Tomorrow: who knows? Probably donuts.

I have seen some civil games of basketball in my time, but the game I watched at my new junior high school this afternoon was on a whole ‘nother level. I need to point out early on that this was my first day, so I knew literally nobody in the gym. There were about 35 teenage girls and three adults, all staring at me.

It’s lucky that everyone was so polite, because the first thing I did was to inadvertently go and sit right in the middle of the opposing team. So I’m introducing myself to a bunch of girls from who knows where, they’re asking the coach if I am her boyfriend, she’s trying to convince them I am and it’s all very confusing.

One awkward sidestep and mumbled explanation (Sorry girls you all seem nice enough and your coach is very friendly but you’re the wrong team sorry I’m sorry see you) during a time out later and I was finally where I was meant to be – with my team of absolute strangers – ready to watch some basketball!

But what I was introduced to was a close variation that I have named Politenessball.

Politenessball has similar rules to traditional basketball plus a shit-tonne more politeness.

Politenessball!

For example, when you sub on, your team mates fold your sweater twice and place it on your seat.

"Bro, you want me to fold that? Yeah, I better fold it."

When you come off again, remember to offer a small bow to the court for treating you so nice.

Even as a spectator you can still be of immense help to the team. Try yelling, “Safety” every once in a while. This help your active teammates to, um… be safe. Alternatively, you could shout “Lucky” when the opposing team cocks up. This is a great non-aggressive way of pointing out that the sloppy play and rampant misfortune of your opponents is really working out rather well for you, and that it has nothing to do with the superior sportsmanship of your team.

Entire Portland Trailblazers Blazers bench: "Lucky!"

I want you to take a moment to consider how beautiful a world it would be if NBA players showed each other the same consideration and incorporated some politenessball into their games.

Everything in the NBA is satisfactual, mister bluebird!

At one point a girl up and dropped the ball and it just sat there; no one from the opposing team scrambled to pick it up, no one from her team scrambled to pick it up, she sure as hell wasn’t going to pick it up again after shaming her ancestors by dropping it. Nobody called anybody else’s mother a whore. It was amazing.

In Politenessball, trash talking is when you ask what day the recycling goes out. I learned everything I needed to know about how to speak to my mother-in-law and my grandparents watching Politenessball.

Boom! Hey, your Mum seems like she raised you well. She's a nice lady.

So the ball’s just sitting there. No one on the bench is saying anything, not even “safety”. All I can do is look around with a deranged grin on my face wondering if this is really happening or if I’ve finally mastered the superpower of freezing time. For two delicious seconds the tension swelled like the pay packet of a starting forward.

References explained: He starts the game in the forward position and he's quite wealthy.

And then, as if a silent cue had been given, every girl in a 10m radius went for the ball at once. It was bananas. I’m assuming they only did it because they all realized simultaneously how impolite it would be to just leave the ball sitting there in the centre of the court and go home.

I felt like I finally reached a key understanding about Politenessball when I asked the girl sitting beside me how many members were in the team and she told me twenty-four.

"That reminds me of a puzzle!"

Your basketball team has 24 members, for Christ’s sake. For training, all members stand in a big circle and pass the ball clockwise from player to player around the circle. If it takes one second to pass the ball between each teammate, can each teammate touch the ball before the shot clock runs down?

If you answered “maybe” then your basketball team is double the recommended size!

Clearly Politenessball was instituted simply as a way to discourage lesser players from outright murdering the talented ones just to get some court time.

I hope they’re playing again tomorrow!

Monkey Money

I have broken my own record of tardiness (which, let me tell you, is established) by taking almost exactly one year to publish this fantastic piece of art. I'll let you drool on it and then provide a little backstory.

So every word of this conversation between myself and my OTE Ms Yasuda (the lady who makes sure that I know what I'm doing and that everyone else also knows what I'm doing) actually happened. I was so delighted by her responses to my - let's call a spade a spade - shit-stirring that I immediately went and posted the whole thing verbatim to Facebook.
When the amazing Ben McDonough read it, he immediately set to work on the amazing piece of art you see here. I have it framed on my wall, so I get to see it every day, but I've done Ben a tremendous injustice by neglecting to show his work to my single digit readership for so long. Thanks for the great stuff, Ben. Keep it up!
There is a sort of method to my madness however; I recently finished my work at the school where this event took place. They treated me so well there. Every day I had conversations and adventures like the one depicted above. (See Jitensha Adventure for further blogworthy hijinks at this school) The promise of a visit to this school on Friday was sometimes literally the only thing that got me through the week. So I post this today in honour of that school, and specifically Yasuda Sensei and Kawashita Sensei, two of my favourite people in this amazing, wacky country. Thank you for 2 fantastic years! I'll never forget you.

Mining for Coffee

I love coffee the same way that guy at your office who wears long sleeves in the summer loves heroin. Probably the thing that I miss the most from New Zealand is coffee. It’s not because you can’t get coffee here in Japan – far from it. It’s just… sigh. It’s just not the same. The most glaring difference is the widespread availability of coffee in cans. I’m not especially well travelled, so… is this a thing? Do countries other than Japan do this? Who came up with coffee in a can? It tastes terrible, like licking a steel-stringed guitar. Despite the fact that coffee plus can equals disaster, there are a plethora of options to choose from. I can only assume that originally the process for making coffee was incorrectly translated into Japanese, leaving them with the impression that you had to involve mining somehow.

Best enjoy that coffee, boy. We lost six good men and one Chinee gettin' it fer ya.

I recently made two purchases which have revolutionised life in the miserable frigid Japanese winter. The first was a Nespresso coffee maker. It takes these little bullet things that are full of coffee. So it’s kind of like a shotgun, but the shots give life instead of taking it.

Sometimes George Clooney just pops by. It's that good.

The second was a thermos so I can draw my caffeinated bliss out for an entire workday.

In honour of the fact that I no longer have to metallic canned shit, I present to you suckas who do a well rounded appraisal of several products in the coffeeminium range that Japan seems to be pioneering. I decided to test a cross sample of canned coffees to see whether they all tasted like waste by-products of Johnny 5.

"Has anyone seen my waste expulsion canister?"

To that end, I asked some of the top Japanese coffee scientists to report on the coffee to metal ratio in each of the following cans of coffee. Then I realised that none of them had the intellectual resourcefulness to question whether roasted coffee beans and aluminium were complimentary tastes, so I ignored those reports and made up my own stats. As I understand from watching the Fukushima reactor news coverage this is how hard hitting reporting usually works anyway. In addition to estimating the coffee to metal ratio I will also give the product a rating for its Engrish content, since most companies will attempt to use Engrish to help sell their product. I can’t decide if unintelligible Engrish should constitute a high score or a low score. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Wheeeee!

Wonda Gold Premium 

Coffee to Metal Ratio: 1:6
This coffee tasted like being punched in the mouth by Atomu. It would be better off being called Wonka Gold Premium, because it’s like a hilariously irreverent food joke being played on you by a hilariously insane factory owner.

"...And then in that tube we add the metal! Don't get too close, Augustus."

Engrish: “GOLD is a Premium Coffee with a Radiant-like Beauty Perfected With Premium Beans.” Engrish Rating: This looks more like a song title than a descriptive sentence. Hey, Wonda. I know when someone is trying to Blind Me With Capital Letters, alright? You also probably don’t get to use the word premium twice if your can costs 80 yen – two thirds of the standard price for a capsule of coffee-flavoured metal. Partly for its use of the ridiculous term ‘radiant-like’, but mostly for its abuse of capitals, I have to award this effort a score of “It’s your life listen to your FUCK Heart” out of 10. (Best t-shirt I ever saw, by the way)

 Roots Creamy Café Café au Lait

Coffee to Metal Ratio: 0:4
Roots have an elegant solution to the problem of coffee and metal not tasting great together: remove the coffee. They wrote coffee on the can in at least two languages, but I swear there was none in the can. It didn’t taste bad, per se. But it didn’t taste like coffee either. Unfortunately, milkshake in a can is beyond the scope of this blog, so I can’t say much more about Roots Creamy Café au Lait.
Engrish: “The Waist-Wave Can provides optimum heat control combined with the HTST PROCESS in the pursuit of the authentic coffee flavour.” I have no idea what this means, but in this case it seems like that was intentional.
Engrish Rating: This is actually some good English with an L. Therefore, I give it a score of “Let’s enjoy English” out of 10.

Sumiyaki Coffee 

Coffee to Metal Ratio: 3:5
This one tasted like it could have been coffee before it was unceremoniously sentenced to alloyed purgatory.
Engrish: ‘This coffee is made with pure water. We roasted coffee beans by charcoal. You will have a relaxing and refreshing time (with the added goodness of aluminium for a hardy constitution).’ (The brackets are my suggested addition to this slogan.)
Engrish Rating: “Let’s coffee! YES YOU BEAUTY GIRL. We rest ourselves together. If it converses, we see the same things probably. We are have the starting of most happy relations.”

Special Mention! W Coffee Black The Hard 

Coffee to Metal Ratio: ??
For some reason I couldn’t bring myself to put this in my mouth, but I heard from some ladies that once you go this coffee you never go back.
Engrish Rating: Kind of porno

Look to the Future!

I’ve achieved a lot since I came to Japan. I can read katakana like a boss. I’ve eaten the entire Big America series of hamburgers from McDonalds. I saw a Rock act that wouldn’t have bothered coming to New Zealand. I’ve made a rainbow coalition of friends and taught 4 schools that learning English is 60% practice and 40% reckless insanity.
But I recently hit a big milestone in my life. I’ve heard it described as ‘the dirty 30s’ which sounds awesome because I was well sick of showering. I managed to combine my birthday party with achieving a goal of mine that has been boiling in my soul for half a lifetime. I was told more than once that it was the best night out some people had ever had. That's not good news, because that means I've peaked. Where do I go from here!? Well, it seemed like a good opportunity to quickly revise my goals for life in Japan and in general for the coming year. If you have any to add, I am happy to take them under advisement. But please remember, this is my life we’re talking about.
So nothing ridiculous.

My Goals for the Future (in no particular order)

1. Successfully petition Ghibli Studio’s to make an anime about my life. I alright wrote the script. It can be found at www.peeweethekiwi.blogspot.com
2. Ride one of those car elevator things. Whether I’m in a car or not is entirely inconsequential.

3. Photograph a Japanese person at the exact moment I bikuri shita (big surprise) their face by daring to be not Japanese.

Just one gaijin can be all it takes to cause a 'dropped pancake face' epidemic.

4. Bejewel something I own completely. Bejewel it to the extent that were it an animal that animal would asphyxiate.
5. Purchase either a turtle or women’s underpants from a vending machine. A turtle wearing women’s underpants is worth double points. Then bejewel the shit out of it.

One of these has to have a turtle in it.

6. Start a charity that donates used stools to underprivileged “stand up” noodle bars.

 Preliminary slogan idea: Stand up against seatlessness. Donate your stool.
7. Fight an oni to death in the forest.

Pretty much one comment about his Mum should be enough to start some shit.

8. Form my own Visual Kei band. Call it Six 14 Happy Riot Parfait Mega.

Visual Kei means never having to say you're sorry.

I don’t want to overextend myself, so I will leave it at eight for now. What are your goals for this year?

Licenced to Wait

I received a dubious compliment the other day: “I like your blogs the best when they’re about nothing, just you sitting around wasting time. First of all, that never happens.Secondly, was this person implying that my blogs don’t perform a vitally instructive public service? Did he miss my foolproof guide on how to be theultimate relieving teacher or how not to use the computer at school?

I recently had a mind numbing experience that combines doing nothing with a positive outcome. In some circles of Tartarus it is known as ‘converting your foreign drivers licence to a Japanese one.’ This is a trick. That makes it sound like a simple act, like you merely show someone one licence and they give you another licence with more Japanese on it. What it should be called is ‘waiting in a line until your will to live is gone.’

Please use these notes I compiled about the experience as guidelines to getting your own licence transferred or wasting six hours of your life. Whichever you would prefer. 

My impression of police life before licence change.

My impression of police life after licence change.

But it makes for the perfect blog! Read it!

Note: I wrote this blog in the style of Rorschach from Alan Moore’s Watchmen, partly because – and I’m sorry if I’m spoiling the ending here – the ordeal of changing my licence mentally unhinged me and partly because what do you care?! I do what I want!

I do what I want.

8:45 Arrive at Akashi Police Station. Must attain Japanese Drivers Licence. Took a number (#3).

9:30 Foreigners licencing department opens. For some reason, about 15 Japanese people rush the door and are seen first before hitting numbered folk like self.

9:50 Number 1 enters office. Notice he is Jehovah’s Witness, so probably only needs bicycle licence. Also note that licence is not necessary to ride Bicycle in Japan. Am confused.

10:25 Number 1 is still in office. Can only assume he is trying to convert licencing officer. Too scared to peek in door lest I too am converted. However, office is only open from 9:30 until 10:30. Begin to panic.

10:29 Notice piece of paper taped to bottom of sign in waiting area. Paper says if you took number between 9:30 and 10:30 they will stay open to see you. Consider taking another number just in case. Don’t.

10:33 Number 1 finally leaves. (On yer bike)

10:34 Number 2 enters.

10:45 Recognise that I have wasted two hours of my life.

10:50 Number 3 is called. Rejoice! Ask if number 4 can come too. (Number 4 is Tran. Read more about our adventures here.)

10:52 Interview about bizarre details irrelevant to driving begins. Interviewer shows intense interest in travel history. Writes details on piece of scrap paper, in pencil (for filing?) Appears to be determining probability we are spies. Frequently confuses Australia and New Zealand. Asks me to recall score on written driving test sat 13 years ago. Seems satisfied by answer I made up. (I hypothetically did really well.)

11:30 Eye Test. Pass easily, despite insistence that ‘green’ light was blue.

11:50 Interview is complete. Interviewer returns Tran’s passport to me, my passport to Tran. Explains next step: wait until 1:00. Fantastic.

11:55 Stand at door and wait for #5 to thank us for doing two numbers at once. #5 is an asshole.

12:00 Basement cafeteria. Counter lady mishears request for almond cake as order for two bowls of ramen. Counter lady doesn’t understand garbled Japanese. What is her angle? Observe ratio of people eating to people studying Japanese road code while sleeping. Ratio is 1:4.

1:00 Large group, maybe 100 people listen to man explain how to complete form interviewer already completed for us. Consider killing spree culminating in explosive murder suicide. Realise that would mean last 5 hours on Earth wasted. Lose feeling in butt.

1:30 Organised into numerical order to have license photos taken. Foreigners come last. Because they love waiting.

2:10 Have photo taken. Look like rapist. Or butcher. Look like rapist butcher. Don’t know Japanese for “any chance of a do over?” Sigh inwardly.

2:30 All line up to receive new license. Choose wrong line. Embarrassed. Fourth to receive new licence in my actual line. Abandon Tran to run to bus stop and ensure space on first bus back to railway. Tran catches up. Can’t blame me; hate waiting.

I have seen the city's true face. It is boring.

More Summer than Sonic

I paid about a black market kidney’s worth of money for a two day pass to the Summersonic music festival. Summersonic takes place in Osaka and Tokyo simultaneously over an August weekend. The acts that play Tokyo on the Saturday play Osaka on the Sunday and vice versa.

As a music fanatic, I am ashamed to say that this was to be my first ever music festival. So I was both excited and nervous as I queued for the bus that would take me and my fellow concertgoers to Maijima, the islands where Summersonic was to be held. Both emotions evaporated instantly under the harsh glare of the scorching hot sun. There were 1600 people ahead of me in that godforsaken line when I began to hallucinate from the heat. I was sure I saw countless nose piercings, tattoos and pink-dyed hair, but those things don’t exist in Japan, right?

Finally I made my way onto the bus. When I arrived at the venue, those feelings of excitement and nervousness came rushing back. It was like being hit with a solid wall of emotion, not to mention a solid wall of people and heat.

There were 3 stages: Sonic stage was the smallest of the three, and the only indoor stage. This is where the bands you’ve never heard of play. And James Blunt.

Ewww.

The Mountain stage was furthest from the entrance. The short uphill walk to reach it was sufficient for its hyperbolic name, presumably. Second string bands played on this stage.

The Ocean Stage was the “main” stage, and where I would spend most of my day.

Now that you have a rough idea of what we’re working with, please enjoy my insightful mini reviews of the bands I saw.

Hollywood Undead – My researchipedia told me that these rap rockers were known for their wearing of custom hockey masks and the use of rap pseudonyms. Two songs in and I could understand why. I guess the most important lesson I learned from Hoolywood Undead was that you can’t wear masks when it’s 40 degress.

Zebrahead – These guys inconsiderately started their set while I was in line for some pizza. Zebrahead are one of those bands that have two singers, but I think one of them’s a bully or something, because the other singer had very little singing to do. This poor bugger’s job was instead to run up and down the length of the stage telling people to “get the fuck up!” Do Japanese people understand this command? (I could use it the train.) Zebrahead are more popular in Japan than in their Mums’ houses, so probably not. Their best song was a cover of Avril Lavigne’s ‘Girlfriend’. Take from that what you will.

"I don't know what I'm doing with my life! Get the fuck up!"

Panic at the Disco – Lead singer Brendon Urie was obviously feeling the heat, because he mentioned it every eight seconds. I think most of the audience counted themselves lucky he was on lead vocals so that his mouth was occupied at least some of the time with something other proclaiming “shit, it’s hot.” He was too hot to even notice that some American girl – who I like to think had stalked him all the way from the States – was desperately declaring her love for him after each and every song. Which is a shame because she was a sure thing.

Maximum the Hormone – I felt death’s presence while watching this band. Prior to their arrival, a woman did something very unusual. In the mosh pit, she laid down a tiny tarpaulin, took off her shoes, whipped her phone out and just went to her special place. In the mosh pit. She then acted surprised and offended when the band started and people stood on her. For my part I lost a shoe as a result of someone deciding a double-handed shove to the spine would be pretty rock ‘n roll. I got it back using a supreme combination of willpower and elbows. However, in an ultimately tragic final twist to this bizarre tale I had to throw the shoes out when I got home anyway. Those shoes came out of the pit looking worse for wear than that weird picnic lady.

Give me your shoes give me your shoes give me your shoes BLEAAAARGGHH!!!

Bow Wow Wow: After four straight bands at the Ocean Stage – one of which tried to indirectly assassinate me – it was time for a break. I made my inside to the Sonic stage, where Bow Wow Wow had amassed an audience of about 100 people who were probably expecting this guy:

Pictured here: NOT Bow Wow Wow

P.I.L – When I dared to venture outside again I made my way sluggishy to the yakisoba stand, then up to the Mountain stage where P.I.L where redefining the definition of music in the worst way possible. I want you to really understand how much this band sucked. Let me put it this way: I love yakisoba. I would eat yakisoba every day if my health check doctors hadn’t already run out of ways to call me fat. P.I.L made my yakisoba taste bad by association. I was inspired by P.I.L to write them this song, which I hope they will record and use to torture music lovers the world over. It should be played using an e-bow and a beard. I haven’t included any chords, because P.I.L taught me that chords don’t matter. I call it Art Wank.

Art wank!

Art wank!

Vitriole!

Fuck your governments!

Art Wank!

Just repeat that until your whole audience hates you and goes back to the Ocean Stage. Which is, coincidentally, exactly what I did!

X-Japan – Every Japanese person had come to see X-Japan. I went into their set with almost no preconceptions, seeing as I knew very little about them. I feel like I learned a lot about Japan’s premiere symphonic metal band. For example, I can tell you that X Japan is made up of a drummer and four other unimportant guys. I can tell you that the drummer is supernaturally beautiful for a 50-year-old man. It probably doesn’t help that the singer looks like Yoko Ono but honestly, I’ve never seen so much footage of a drummer’s face at a concert. By my estimation in a 40-minute set it was about 38 minutes of the this guy’s face and forearms flailing gorgeously and 2 minutes of the cameraman just kind of looking around aimlessly while the drummer changed costumes.

"Cut the fireworks! All the smoke is making it hard for people to see my staggering beauty."

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Firstly, I stand firm on my opposition to the pedo ‘stache, even when someone as awesome as Anthony Keidis is wearing it. Secondly, the lack of John Frusciante was significant. Their replacement was certainly an able guitarist, although he did bad, bad things to most of the solos. But when your bassist is Flea, the guitar becomes secondary to a degree. Where Frusciante’s absence was most apparent was in the harmonies, or lack thereof. It’s just lucky I was there! I provided harmonies myself for the 500 people surrounding me. And did I receive a word of thanks? I did not.

I award best performance of the day to the sun. It overshadowed all the other acts, nearly made Brendon Urie cry and helped me decided not to bother attending on Sunday just to see Korn play a thirty minute set.

I would like to dedicate this blog to Brendon Urie. I hope he's somewhere cold. 

"You can be a real dick sometimes, Sun."