So on Tuesday I went into NOVA and found out the wait continues. Now, NOVA must get the OK from the government to let me begin asking for a visa. Yes, you heard that the right. Permission to ask permission for a working visa. Typical bureaucraticrap (check out my new hyperfusion word! giggles!). And the 12 weeks until my first pay check doesn't appear to start until after my work contract starts, which isnt until I have a visa. The boss guy said he normally suggests teachers have about $2000 (??) to start out in Japan.. I have about less than 100. Its time for some miracle magic... I'm going to have to try to drum up some money somehow. Hmmm. I can do it! I can do it! (??)
Tonight I went to this really awesome live show! Kayo had sorta won the tickets to see the DJ for a band I really like Denki Groove (for those of you who know them, yes they are shocking, but all music is cool--!).. Denki Groove has broken up, but their DJ (a guy named Takkyu) is still performing! But Kayo had an appointment with her good friend Buubuu (she was going out to eat and stuff with him) so she couldn't go to the show... long story short, I ended up with free tickets to an awesome concert. The show took place on the roof of a ten story high Tower Records building. It was the outside roof, so you could see the clouds up above, and the air blow on you... There were speakers set up all around the roof which would be used stereophonically (pulsing sound and stuff...) I got there first, and got in the blue ticket line. (The people who had won their tickets by buying a CD had blue tickets, those who had paid to get in had red tickets)... I noticed immediately that there was a difference among the blue and red ticket holders... the red ticket people were more or less your typical clubbers, but the blue ticket people were more of a random mix. Because of this (or maybe its always mixed up at Takkyu's concerts?) there was a really wide range of Japanese people at the concert. There was this one guy who had a huge curly beard, bigger than the unibomber, with a bright neon green stripped shirt. And there was these two classic hippies/stoners dancing next to me. They had dreadlocks, and sandals, bead necklaces, big baggy pants, and a "scruffy" look about them, and every time the beat kicked in, they would say the classic "wohhhyeah!" thing that hippies (this isnt meant as a negative word!) say when they are excited. There was that one person who gets too excited at every dance-party, you know the person who flings their arms too wildly and spins too strongly that they just dont match with anyone around them? There was the classic overly-nerdy guy who was hunched over, rocking his shoulders slightly trying to be cool but too scared to really move and too socially shy to do much of anything. And there was a couple of highschool girls, in sailor-style school uniforms, shaking away. And a young salary man (office worker) still in his suit moving to the rhythm. And that clueless foreigner that always looks out of place (uhm, ok maybe that one was me!) ... Basically it was such a diverse crowd, it was really cool. And the music was awesome, really weird and sometimes broken. (brake-beats, jitter-stops, screech-feed backs) but when the deep bass beats kicked in, it was so danceable. The bass music was so loud, that even if George W. Bush decided insanely to randomly add Japan to the axis-of-evil, and began bombing the hell out of downtown tokyo, I wouldnt have been able to hear it. It was that thunderous. It throbbed so loud that my ears were ringing afterwords. The kind of bass you can feel in your bones, makes you want to dance. And some of the sound samples Takkyu used were really freaky cool (this one that sounded like "dick-dick-dick disco" and another one that was this guy saying "we are the jihad, you know you want us bad, gunna have to shake your butt, the DJ is a slut" and he even had the guts to sample the one line from one of Eminem's famous songs [the one where he is bashing on Moby] when Eminem is saying something like "nobody listen to techno!" in the middle of a hardcore techno beat, which was really cool.) They ended the show with a super heavy techno remix of "you spin me right round, like a record baby" (you know the song from The Wedding Singer?!) and the announcer guy trying to sing the words in English but totally messing up (because it was remixed so heavy the tempo was all messed up) ... everyone cheered really loud and pushed the dude into performing one more song even though he said he was done, and so he put on another song, was really an awesome beat, thundering, then he faded the beat after a while, and then he flipped on a sample that kept looping "disco-disco-disco-disco-disco" and he threw up his hands (in a cool, I am a winner kind of way) and walked off stage. That was the end of the show. the loop kept looping "disco-disco-disco-disco".. the announcer guy came back on and some sound guy faded down the sound effect loop and the announcer guy said [in Japanese] "sorry about that guys, Takkyu is really tired, thats all, hope you enjoyed the show!..." and that was that. Good show though... really wild. (Pictures were illegal, but I took one with my keitai phone but it didnt turn out cool so I'm not posting it.) On my way back to my friend's house, I got off the train at the home station and was beginning to walk toward the exit's stairs when this guy freezes in his tracks, his face expresses complete shock, and he says in English "ddd...da..dansen? what where? what?" It was an AUAP student named Soichi that I had known in America, about a year and a half ago I guess. He didn't know I was in Japan I guess and he was so surprised to see me. I guess I am just too relaxed of a person, I wasn't surprised that much. But it was really cool seeing someone in busy Japan, in fact seeing someone so close to where your living, completely randomly. Freaky fun!
CRAZY LINKS! I've been collecting some funny stories and links to share with the (2 or 3??) readers of this site. They are Japan related, so here we go.... first lets start with the story of Bob Sapp:
...
Its been said a million times in a million ways, but those who have never been to Japan might not really understand what it means when someone says "s/he might not be famous here, but they are big in Japan." This is a phrase that can be used for more than just Bon Jovi (who is insanely famous over here) but also for acts such as Deep Purple (remember them? 70s rock band? Big in Japan, yes sir, they are quite big in Japan.) and also such people as... Bob Sapp. "Who??" you might ask with a puzzled look on your face. Who indeed! 
Originally, Bob Sapp was in America not sure which direction his life would take him. He had played football for the University of Washington, and he had managed to get on TV's Strongman competition. Bob Sapp was virtually an unknown kickboxer from America (In fact, he recently bought a house in Seattle!) who is currently a super big hit with all the professional wrestling fans all over japan. And that fact in itself is kind of interesting, but it gets even more twisted and interesting when you check out some of Bob Sapp's overly sappy (pun intended!) merchandising deals. Bob Sapp has parlayed his amazing talents as a butt-kicker into an almost rap-funk act out of some distorted 70s-80s fusion of wacky proportions. Words can not express this act, so in an effort to fully spread the joy, some links are now offered. Please enjoy Bob Sapp kicking it, full speed ahead my funkadelic music desire-hungry masses!
video clip of Bob Sapp rapping (and if you dont have a fast modem, you can go low-res here)
And for all you new Bob Sapp fans, we couldnt help but to include a final clip. This one is with Mr.Sapp interjecting random things in a Berry White style voice while a Japanese guy is singing. Oh yeah...
video clip of that (and low-res)
(real player is required for all video links)
You might be inclined to laugh, which would probably be ok with Bob Sapp since he has a reputation for a huge sense of humor, but you should do more than giggle. This isn't just some insane weirdness, this is also entertainment. (And if your interested, you can pick up a copy of his song as a single for about 10 bucks in Japan.) Yes, its different. Yes, its strange. But hey, whatever, we all have different tastes! So before you go and laugh at someone who says "I'm big in Japan" you should check to see if they are big like Bob.
(For more information about Bob Sapp, please read TIME Asia's wonderful article all about him.)
...
Now on to some other crazy links I've found recently! Japanese freakyness! Check this stuff out!
Akiyoshi's illusion pages (and the original Japanese page) - this page is full of pictures that will totally mess with your eyes/mind/eyemind---! Most of them you should stare directly at the center, and you'll feel like your having a flashback or something! Wildness... Tokyo Tower Live Cam - remember the section on my page when I went to Tokyo Tower? Now you can too! (virtually, a lot less groovy, but hey!) Ocean Dome (only in Japanese) - this page isnt in English, but you can just click the RGB buttons to download the pictures.... its an inside ocean. A totally contained ocean with a wave system and environmental controls (although the roof can pull back on really good days) and the most amazing thing about this popular fake beach, is it is built next to a real beach. I suppose perfect texture sand, correct temperature water and excellent waves are better than the real thing anyday.....?! sky building - I started being interested in this because my mum got me interested in supposed "sky buildings" (huge apartment complexes with weird shapes etc) and this is actually an example of one, the page loads kind of slow, but when it loads you can see the weird shape of this building and the huge connected garden thing plaster on the top of the two buildings, connecting them. Its a freaky, but eye-catching, design!
And before I get out of here some notes about inside links (meaning links to my stuff) ... I realized my Japanese lesson wasn't full enough, and although you can check it anytime you want... I added a link to a different (outside) source for learning how to write and read Japanese... it a really good multimedia learning site... check it out! (click hiragana or katakana links to begin learning how to write...they also have 8 useful beginning lessons on useful Japanese below the hiragana katakana parts! with colorful rainbows! a total good site worth spending your extra time on, why not learn some Japanese?!) .... oh before I go go go! I have ANOTHER photo album!! This one is on an English site (my friend Arron's travel Japan site) and its about a local Matsuri festival, so you can see lots of cool traditional clothes and stuff. Start right here and the 16 pictures lead into the second album which is a set of 18 pictures of a bon-odori festival. (if you want, you can jump right to the bon-odori pictures if you so desire!) The bon-odori pictures focus more on the yummy food and stuff, so if your hungry right now you might get even more hungry! ANYWAY! This has been a really long post...!! DAAG!!
0 comments:
Post a Comment