On the heels of my 810 dollar whipping, I recieved in the mail yesterday a random paycheck for 600 dollars. I love this, but it also concerns me. I love it because given the absolute lack of any other reason for this money, I have determined that somebody out there is finally paying me for no other reason than the fact that I am sweet. Whoever this is, I would like to thank you, but you certainly took your sweet fucking time.

It concerns me because it is yet another addition to the pile of mounting evidence I have accumulated that asserts that there is absolutely no rhyme or reason in the country. Case in point: the sheer number of middle aged people in this city driving around with pot-leaf air fresheners that have no idea that they are pot-leaf air fresheners. It's ludicrous.

You see, I'm losing my mind over here. I know this because I feel extreme emotional responses to otherwise quite normal occurrences, for example:

Recieve a random extra paycheck for something no doubt very ordinary, like subsidies: extreme egomanical happiness.

Punching a hole through the seat of my scooter whilst wiping it down from the fifteenth straight day of pouring rain: murderous rage.

Watching an old lady at the soba joint sneeze from the inordinate amount of red pepper I pour on my soba: unchecked hilarity.

Waking up after drinking anything alcoholic at all, whatsoever, either with or without a scratchy voice from singing crappy karaoke, and less money than I woke up with the day before: crippling guilt.

This last one in particular bothers me.

You see, I may seem like a superstar, devil-may-care millionaire, akin to Johnny Depp back when he was a hotel trashing bad-boy and owned that club that River Phoenix OD'd outside of. In reality, however, I'm like the new Johnny Depp, the one who would rather wistfully reflect about his past while changing his kids diapers or working in his garden like a sissy. The Johnny Depp that has absolutely no problem naming his daughter Lily-Rose Melody Depp. Or maybe I'm not like Johnny Depp at all, having never trashed a hotel room with Kate Moss, nor ever having really been a "bad boy," at least not in any way at all similar to how P Diddy would define the term. Also, Lily-Rose Melody is a pretty stupid name. Anyway, the point is I'm awash in emotion, and I have a question for you, gentle reader:

How come I feel guilty when I drink?

The easiest answer would be because drinking takes your money whilst slowly destroying you for your troubles, but I feel like there is more to it. Don't get me wrong, I don't have any sort of problem. I only drink on the weekends, with all of you, so before you get self-righteous on me just take a step back, jack.

I am not sure how, but I think that the answer to that question lies within these next two questions:

Am I actually doing anything over here?

and,

How can I leave this place with no regrets?

One acceptable answer is:

Just take it easy and live your life for Christsakes, you brooding pansy.

But that's just one of many acceptable answers.

For a while Geoff and I have been joking that, since I always seemed to have more money than him, I was the happy victim of some accounting error in my favor. "You just wait," he would say, jokingly, "the other shoe will drop." Hahaha. Laughs all around. I buy another half bottle of wine. We toast to our good health.

Well, surprise, surprise. Truth is stranger than fiction. Yesterday I was told to go to the front office, apparently I had some backrent to pay. I was unaware of this backrent, but I knew I could float another 400 for rent, should worse come to worse. If this was my other shoe, so be it.

I walk in to the office:

"I hear I have a bill."
"Oh, yes," our bookeeper says, "here."

It's for 810 dollars.

"Do you understand the charges?" he asks. I'm silent for several seconds, reeling from this kick in the balls.

"What's this?" I manage to say, pointing at one in a long list of charges. "Landlord Negotiation Fee?"

"A yes. That's your landlord."

Me: ...

Him: ...

Me: "It's for two hundred dollars."

Him: "Ah, yes..."

Me: (Sigh)

There was also a bill for two hundred dollars in "Thanks Money" that I may or may not have recieved. Perhaps I would have had more of a claim to contest it if they could actually understand me, and if it weren't for the fact that the bill is four months old.

Anyway, that's not the point of this entry. They tell me more money is coming my way for some or other reason, I'll believe it when I see it, but since I am now out the better part of a thousand dollars two days before rent is due for this month, I think it's high time for an entry on "Things I Love About Japan." Hopefully it will steer me out of the dangerous and slightly postal mood I'm in...


I have four things I can say I love about Japan right now. The list will hopefully grow as time wears on.


Thing 1: Tipping. Or rather, lack of tipping. You never tip anyone here for anything ever. Bellhop carries your bags up twenty flights of stairs? No tip. Bellhop carries you up twenty flights of stairs? No tip. Taxis? No tip. Food, drink? No tip. In fact, they will be insulted if you give them a tip. Only in America do we insist on tipping even ungrateful members of our service industry with 20% on top of the bill. It's asinine.


Thing 2: The Soba Noodle joint in the train station. This place is very underrated. I am often caught in the delimma where I am already late to meet people for some drinks, but I haven't eaten all day. This is when you need to steer clear of McDonald's, it will destroy the empty stomach. If, however, you want soothing wheat noodles in a steaming broth, with fresh onions topped with some hot pepper, why then simply turn left instead of right at the station, my friend, and walk in to the cheap noodle place. Two Bucks Fifty Cents will get you all the food you need. Watch out for the random eggs cracked on top of the food though.


Thing 3: Single Serving Coffee. When they aren't working themselves to death here, they're drinking themselves to death, so what keeps them going for those 15 hour work days? More often than not it is one of the thirty-five or so different types of single serving coffee cans offered in convenience stores and vending machines everywhere. Several different types for each day of the week.

Thing 4: The Ten Different Sizes of Beer Available for Purchase. They have everything from giant fifty ounce jugs to tiny 4 and a half ounce shot cans.
Here I am holding a 4.5 ounce can of beer, the kiddie size. Seriously, what am I supposed to do with four ounces of beer? Feed it to my cat? Is this a beer for ants?














There you have it. Four things I love about Japan. Notice that "Freak 810 Dollar Charges" is not among them.

Yesterday was a big day here. All classes were cancelled. It was the annual "Tournament Day" at Koho High School.

Every Japanese High School student is required to take a sport for PE class. Every boy at Koho is given the choice between Kendo or Judo. He must choose one. Sucks if he's a lover, not a fighter, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Every girl must take badminton, there is no negotiation here, girls get no choice. Such is Japan.

The administration thought it would be a great idea, once a year, for every boy to fight in a tournament of their respective sports until one emerges as the best at Kendo and another emerges as the best at Judo, everyone watches from the sidelines.

The girls must all bat little feathered rubber balls at each other in the far gym while no one watches or cares. Such is Japan.

Now, I imagine that Tournament Day terrifies 90% of the boys in this school and elates the other meat-head 10%. We have a lot of disabled kids here, a few have minor physical disabilites, many more have mild to slightly severe mental disabilities, it doesn't matter, everyone fights, only one winner.

A small part of me thinks this tournament is a good idea: this is the part of me that loves the movie Fight Club and that does not like sissies. The larger part of me is slightly horrified, but nonetheless amused. I keep thinking what it would have been like if I had been forced to fight in a tournament with everyone in my freshman class at Littleton High School. Yeeeesh. That wouldn't have been pretty. The meat-heads would have loved it though. It's V-Day for the big guys; they can't really speak english (many have trouble with Japanese), but they can sure as shit beat the living hell out of a skinny kid with a stick, or pin him on the ground with a choke hold.

There were several hilariously tragic fights throughout the day. One 4 foot 11 inch kid had a kendo match against a tall thin kid, I admit I laughed when I saw the little guy flailing around a sword that was just as big as him. Some kids never attacked, they just held up their hands like beaten puppies while their opponents wailed on them. In Judo, I saw several kids get thrown over the backs of their opponents within ten seconds of the match. They would get up, smile awkwardly, and move to sit down in the losers circles. One kid got himself on the bad end of a hold and just gave up, he sat there under the meat-head for a full minute, until the time was up.

Believe it or not, the boxing champion made it to the last round of Judo, he lost though. The winner was a big stocky guy. Surprise surprise. The final match was between him and this muscular beady eyed kid who looks like a stone cold killer at 15. The winner of the kendo matches were also big guys. They could have saved everybody a lot of trouble and just told me at the beginning of the day to pick out the winners, I would have been correct, and no little kids need have been humiliated.

In the afternoon was the big event: Teacher's Kendo Team vs. All-State Girls Kendo Team. Your's truly was included. Imagine, if you will, one ring, two opponents, every student watching on the sideline. There is a teachers dugout where each man waits for his turn, there is a student dugout where each lady awaits her turn. We eye each other accross the playing field. Three judges place themselves strategically about the ring. It's go time. Three teachers went before me, not one got even a single point. The girls are creaming us. I point menacingly at my opponent accross the ring, she doesn't understand what I'm doing, I look around me and figure out no-one really points here, I stop pointing.

It's my turn. Best of three points. I'm the red guy, she's the white guy.

I stand up, move to the edge of the ring and bow at my enemy. Together we walk towards each other and bow again. We take out our bamboo swords. Someone screams "START" and were off. Immediatley I switch into that cocky "sword above your head" stance, but uh-oh, she's in it too. Shit. Time to attack. I scream and unleash a fury of blows about her head. She blocks every one. She screams at me and attacks, we start pushing at each other, our masks touching. She looks me in the eye and I look her in the eye and we both scream again.

She tags me on the head. "POINT!" White flags go up.

We start again, I scream again, and I get lost in the battle. I use one handed whip-motions from far away because of my long arms. She blocks but she is overwhelmed by my hugeness. Somehow, in the heat of battle, I manage to throw her off.

I crack her on the head. "POINT!" RED FLAGS GO UP! HAHAHAHA! I GOT A POINT! The crowd loves it. White boy got a point! White boy got a point! I'm back in the game. Best of three. This is it. One more for the win.

We start again, I scream again, I move in to attack but it's sloppy. She tags me within 15 seconds. "POINT!" White flags go up.

I am defeated. She has chopped my right hand off.

We bow, many times. The match is done.

The rest of the tournament went similarly, but no one else got a point. I am the only teacher on our team that managed to get even one point off of the all-state girls team. True, part of it was a gimmie, no doubt they wanted to see me get a point in Kendo, but you know, I've always said (since yesterday) that a point is a point.

At the end of the match all of the girls ran up to us again and bowed again "Thank you Sensei!" my girl says. I point at her,

"You are awesome," I say. She doesn't understand. She looks at her friend for help

"Awesome," I repeat. Her friend understands and translates. My opponent smiles.

"No, you." She says.

I got a point.

I believe I have just witnessed what is now the current winner in the "most flagrant show of blatant disrepect on the part of a student" category.

On tuesdays I team teach a class that is normally very quiet, so I always look forward to it, it is one of the few. Thus, you can imagine the look on my face when I walk in and find that we have a new student. It's one of the makeup whores, and the loudest one at that. My face fell fifteen stories, from smile to snarl. Just like that the whole class was ruined, I knew it. The show must go one, though, so I gave it my best foot forward. I started with my daily warmup where I ask the kids what the date is, and how the weather is.

As soon as I start talking, the loud girl starts talking too, to her friend. This pisses me off in two ways, the first is because she wasn't even trying to lower her tone. She was speaking in a LOUD OUTDOOR VOICE, and occasionally cackling in the way that young japanese whores do. This also pisses me off because the girl she is talking to is normally an attentive and enthusiastic girl. Naturally, her discussion starts more discussions and before I know it the entire class is talking, although none as loud as the Whore In Training. (WITs I call them, which is hilarious on so many levels, not the least of which is because they clearly have none.)

Two seconds into the lesson and I've already lost the class. My assistant teacher didn't really know how to tackle the situation. So I snapped and shusshed her very, very, very loudly, spit flew out of my mouth, and I affixed her with a stare that intimated I would go Jack the Ripper on her if she didn't shut the hell up. I see that she has a nasty hicky on her neck. I throw up a little in my own mouth.

Her eyes went wide, she stopped mid sentance. The whole class froze. The students were taken aback "What is this? He gets mad at the children? Why, that's unheard of!" I knew all of these thoughts went through his head.

I was granted about one minute of the most pure and blissfull silence I have ever encountered in my short life.

Eventually she started talking again, like she always does (you must understand that when she bothers to show up to class she does nothing, and no amount of constant reminding can get her or her slutty friends to stop being the worthless anchors that are slowly dragging this school down.) Although it's not much, I count it as a small victory that she didn't talk quite as loudly or as frequently. Then, halfway through the lesson she gets up and leaves.

Afterwards I spoke to my assistant teacher about her.

"She's not normally in that class," I said. I assumed that she switched classes because of some or other reason.

"I know," He said.
"Is she in the class now?" I asked.
"No," he said.

Do you realize what this means? This means that little bitch ditched her own real class to walk in to my class and disrupt everything and everyone. It wasn't even her class. When I think back on it, I recall similar behavior in other classes with other kids. THEY WANDER IN AND OUT OF CLASSES, WILLY NILLY! This tells me all I need to know about the general lack of respect in this school. When the kids think so little of the teachers and the lessons that they forego their own class to disrupt another simply because a friend is in it, they have really gone off the deep end. This is unfathomable to me, even in the worst schools in the worst districts of the worst cities in the worst states in the entire USA, someone would have told this girl to leave.

I don't care if you're Michelle Pfiefer and you have latinos with knives and skinheads with swastika tatoos running around, and Coolio is blasting Gangsta's Paradise in the background, the teacher would have said something if the wrong student just waltzed into a class and started running her mouth. I clearly will, now that I know, if she ever tries to come into another class like that.

Now, I would beat them if I could. They aren't little kids, they are 16-18 years old. They aren't armed either, at least I have that guarantee. Some of them would hit back, and some might win, too. I just found out that one of the sleepers in one of my classes took second in his division in the all state boxing tournament this weekend. Thank God this kid just sleeps all day and keeps to himself. He would be beating me. The problem is, far from beating the kids, the teachers won't even stop them from talking. The only Japanese teacher that does anything is my supervisor, and that's because he is young. He's a yeller. We need more yellers. Him and the PE teacher. The P.E teacher will go so far as to twist an ear, but in a friendly manner. I want bloody knuckles. I want Mother O' Malley of the Catholic Order of Beat Ass to come in here with about eighty sisters. I want ten nuns per class. Come to think of it, this would also solve the whole problem of everyone over here being a heathen. Two birds with one stone.

This school is going under. I hate to be the one to say it, but it's true, and the sooner people here understand that the better it will be for them. It already has a reputation across the state as a school for slouchers and troublemakers. We need serious outside consultation and major change. All cell-phones need to be confiscated before class and returned after school. All makeup kits need to be confiscated before classes and returned after school (or not, depending on if the girl needs any more goddamn makeup on her WIT face). Teacher's need kick kids out of class and these kids need to fail. Keep kids in this school for fifteen years if need be, and charge them for it.

I have started to see small changes, but I fear they are too little too late. For instance, the administration here all of the sudden recently announced that our caliber of student "be on par with those of competing schools." Well, isn't that nice. I'll just get right on that. Let me push my little "on par" button here under my desk and fix everything lickety-split. As a way to get smarter students, they made the entrance exam harder. That's all well and good, I'm all for syphoning out the idiots, but you have to make the smart kids want to come. A better entrance exam is important, but that does nothing to help the 200 odd kids already here. I proofread the English section of the new exam today and I know without a doubt that not a single student i've ever come in contact with here could understand the English section of that exam. What kind of a school is it when the seniors are all dumber than the freshman?


If anybody knows any nuns doing freelance work, shoot me their number.

Kendo Practice Day 2:

Since it seemed so enjoyable to the two Japanese dudes kicking my ass, i thought you all might find it interesting as well.

Today I trained with a guy on the men's Kendo team. Whereas the girl had the standard "arms in front, sword pointing at me" stance, this punk had this cocky "arms in the air above his head, sword pointing at the sky" stance. You know what that stance says to me? It says "Brad, look at all this open chest space, c'mon in! Give it a shot! It looks sooooo easy, doesn't it? C'maaaan...what are you, some sort of pussy? Hit me!"

I believe I can sum up both of my fights with this guy in the following sentences:

Me (to myself): Wow, that looks like a pretty vulnerable spot, maybe I should-

-WHAM! I get cracked right on the top of the head. Hard.

Me (to myself): All right, ouch. My ears are ringing a little, fool me once shame on-

-WHAM! I get cracked right on the top of the head. Hard.

Then I get frustrated and start flailing at the kid and land an illegal blow on the armpit-above the chest guard, below the head guard. He winces, the judge goes "ooooo".

Me: HAHA! Got you you fucker!-

-WHAM! I get cracked right on the top of the head. Hard.

Now I ask you, is this any way to go in to a weekend? Did I sign up for this? Sure it's sort of fun and all, but now I have two golf-ball sized lumps on my head, one right in the center, and the other just at my hairline above my right eyebrow. I'm serious. I'm talking the kind of lumps Daffy Duck gets when Bugs Bunny wails on him with a mallet. The worst part? Now I have to go out drinking with a splitting headache. The headache isn't supposed to come until tommorrow! What's the deal?!?

Did I mention that this kid was doing these vicious overhead hits one handed? It's ok though, I got in one more of those illegal armpit hits before the day was done. The little bitch.

In the typical fashion of stilted Japanese Teacher-to-Jet communication, I was sitting reading peacefully at my desk the other day when the teacher next to me, whom I don't talk to all that much, turns to me and says "when can you practice?"

"Excuse me?" I said. (I say that a lot here.)

"For the Kendo Tournament."

"Tournament?"

"Yes. Teacher's Kendo Club. Students vs. Teachers. Tournament is in a week and a half."

"Oh, right." (I have no prior knowledge of this club existing, let alone my being a member of it. Of course, I smile and give him three dates in which I can practice "Kendo.")

So there you have it. One second I'm reading Brett Easton Ellis, the next I'm a member of the Kendo club. Funny how life works.

Now, for those of you not in the know, kendo is a big time Japanese sport in which men and women outfit themselves in blue skirts and helmets and wail on each other with bamboo swords. At least, thats what it looks like they are doing when I pass kendo practice every day on my way out the door. As it turns out, there is a lot more to it. Go figure.

Anyway, today was my first practice. One of the members of the girls kendo team is set aside to teach me how not to make myself look like a complete idiot in front of the whole school next week. She is a very sweet girl, and one of the smallest, most innocent looking people you will ever meet. Naturally, she whuped my ass. She was polite about it though. You see, short of bowling and walking from the Sunshine 88 apartment complex to Toyama station hungover on the weekends I don't get much excercise, so she ran circles around me. Apparently, you cannot score a point in Kendo unless you hit your opponent on either the top of the head, the right wrist, or the abdomen. On top of that, you cannot score a point unless you scream the name of the area you want to hit, sort of like calling your pocket. So imagine, if you will, a lanky white boy running at a 5 foot 3 inch Japanese schoolgirl with a stick and yelling

HEAAAAAAAADD! AHHHHHHHH!!!!! WRIIIIIIIIIIIIIST!!!!!!!! HIYAAAAAAAA!

And then getting really winded after five minutes and asking to take a break.

Suffice to say, had those little bamboo shoots been real steel, this little girl would have split my skull, chopped off my right hand, and gutted me in three minutes.

One of the teachers turned to me and said proudly, "this girls kendo team is the best."

"Oh really?" I replied, "in the whole school?"

"No, in the whole state. Boys too."

Wonderful. This tournament should be a real show.

Japanese kids are either always at school, or they never change out of their uniforms. Let me explain:

Last weekend I didn't come home. Well, that's not entirely true, I came home for some whisky and a cigar, but then I left again. I hadn't planned it that way, everything just panned out that way.

You see, last friday was the "wild and crazy" Jet Halloween party. And you know what? It was pretty damn wild and crazy, and I liked the music. You gotta love any party where afterwards a grown man dressed up as a bumblebee is barfing into a bag in the isle of a night train home at 2am. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the train rides to and from the event were the best part.

On the ride up: Japanese Businessman, Sleeping Japanese Businessman, Witch, Drunk Japanese Businessman, Sleeping Japanese Businessman, Slutty Devil, Sleeping Japanese Businessman, etc. etc. etc. Five hundred Japanese schoolchildren in uniform at 8pm.

On the ride back, at 2am, there were no schoolchildren, thank heaven. This was the scene: Drunk Japanese Businessman, Sleeping Japanese Businessman, Drunk Witch, Drunk Japanese Businessman, Drunk Japanese Businessman, Drunk Slutty Devil, Sleeping Japanese Businessman, Barfing Bumblebee, etc. etc.

My costume? Well, I tore a page right out of the playbook of a good college buddy of mine by the name of John Hamel (who, coincidentally, is also living in Asia right now, sandwitched between two regimes of commies; North Korea and China) and dressed myself up as a present with a note on it that read "TO: WOMEN, FROM: GOD." I think you can get the joke. Kudos to John for that one, it was undoubtedly a hit. The only problem was putting the unwieldy box on myself whilst on the train. I had to put my beer down and move to the side, out of the way, and lift the thing over my head. One major drawback of this costume, however, is the fact that while wearing it you cannot bend your knees. John might have told me that, but whatever. So, after I got this huge box over me, I couldn't even bend over to pick up my beer again. I had to bother a frightened/amused Japanese businessman and ask him to pick my beer up for me. He did it, though. Kudos to him for that one.

Anyway, the party was fun, I got home very late and crashed at Geoff and Robin's place, and woke up at 12:15 on their cot. After a delightful breakfast (Kudos to Geoff for that one) I suggested bowling. Goeff agreed and we went to get beer and bowl, because Lord knows you cannot bowl without drinking. Anyway, we start drinking and bowling and I look around and lo and behold there are at least twenty Japanese schoolchildren bowling in full school uniforms. WTF? It's Saturday, its 3pm. Let it go, right?

We get to drinking and bowling, and we decide to just coast right in to the night. I suggest whisky and cigars, and so Geoff and I head back to my place. On the way back, at 8pm, lo and behold we run into seven of my students, in full uniform, walking back from school. Now, I was unsettled by this. These are kids from my school. What are they doing in uniform at 8 on a Saturday night? No wonder these kids lead boring lives. I felt sorry for them, but then I had a cigar and some scotch and I felt ok. We ended up back in the city, and I fell asleep on the cot again after arguing vehemently with Geoff over God and politics until 7am. Naturally.

So the next day I got up at noon again and I had a delicious breakfast (kudos to Geoff for that one) and I asked Robin if maybe I should go home, I dunno, take a shower or something. She says that her Halloween party is in less than five hours, and I would have to be back anyway. What should Geoff and I do to kill time while she sets up? Why, go bowling, of course. So we go get some beers and end up back at the alley. Lo and behold there are another twenty fricking kids bowling in full school uniforms! Now, this is just rediculous. Things have gotten out of hand. Its a Sunday afternoon and these kids are still in their school uniforms. They are wearing the same thing. Granted, so was I, but at least it wasn't a school uniform.

When all was said and done I got home at 10pm on Sunday night for the first real time. I probably saw kids in uniform on the train ride home, but I was a little tired by then and I wasn't paying attention. It's a good thing too, because if I had actually seen one while paying attention my mind probably would have blown wide open right there on the 9:46 Eastern Bound Tonami Line train.