American Revolution as Read on the BBC and in the NYer

I had all these things I wanted to write about, and then I kept putting it off till I forgot what exactly I was going to write about. So I'm going to ramble a bit and see if anything comes up.

First of all, there was the Obama win from afar. What strange mix of excitement and homesickness. (Much like Thanksgiving this year, though not so much excitement for the turkey and fixins without the fam.) I found out about the win as soon as it was certain, about 11pm EST, but 10am for me out here. So I had a great day of work and then me and a few friends hit the streets of Namba with convenience store beer and a cheap bottle of bubbly. And what did we find? a bunch of empty bars. Apparently there was a big party in another part of town. But the old haunts have been cleared out since Nova went bust. I'm surprised alot of these bars haven't gone out of business. I mean, a year ago, these places had a big crowd every night. (Imagine, about 1000 foreigners in a city that all work at the same company, most of who are in their 20s, and they all go to the same handful of bars where the staff speaks English and they know they won't be the only non-Japanese person in the place, which can feel really, really weird.) Places that used to be packed every night, where I was sure to see at least someone I knew even if I just turned up alone, now have the occasional busy night where there's more than 10 people hanging around.

Anyway, that's probably not all that exciting to read about. Oh, I've finally bought up a bunch of stuff for my apartment, doing my part to save the world economy while warping my AmEx. You should have seen how excited the salesman was. No lie. He gave me several gifts, including chopsticks, a leg warmer that folds up into a pillow and some collectable (?) pins for the Osaka baseball team, the Hanshin Tigers. This is actually common practice in Japan: the giving of a strange assortment of gifts following a big purchase. Some of you may remember my gift of dish soap and a plastic coffee mug when I signed up for my cellphone. But the place is looking pretty sweet huh?


Here's the kitchen, finally stocked. And usually clean.


















The living space mid-laundry. Usually that stuffs on the balcony, but it's really windy today.













Where I plug into the matrix.















The shower, sink and tub section of the bathroom. Not so different, but I had add this caption as a reminder of the separation of toilet and tub that is pretty strictly enforced out here. Some apartments have the whole thing in one place, and they're cheaper to rent too. But I guess I've grown used to the old setup. I'm turnin, folks!
















That said, there's nothing wrong with a toilet in the laundry room. Or is it a laundry machine in the toilet room? It's these little things that get confusing still.












Speaking of all this buying of stuff, how's things economically back home? I don't know what to believe. I read that shit is hitting the fan everywhere. But I see people shopping like mad out here. And all my friends back home say they're busy, but employeed. As for me, I'm working the same as ever, though I am teaching some students on the side to help out with rent. But some of my students who work in offices say things are grinding to a hault. Any word from the States or the few of you who still read from the EU zone?

Anyway, not much going on right now. Just working and hanging out. Pretty lame. Buuuut, in three short weeks my 2 week winter break begins. :) Ahhh, I can't wait.

And some bonus pics for all of you that scrolled down through all that crap I just wrote.




Me and Ken waiting for an elevator in a department store that suddenly seemed like a Contemporary Art Museum
















Nothing like going to a party in whiteface. The big purple and red writing to the left of the aryan reads, Hellooooo, Mr. Foreigner!



















This was as Christmas as I could find it in Namba: The subway station mall. Notice the large, polished wale jumping from the brilliant tile on his way to the tree. Just like the first Christmas!
















Thanksgiving gone terribly American.

Sleeping on Trains and My New Apartment (unrelated)

New Pad in Murky Waters

First I'd like to thank everyone who sent some advice on the apartment hunt. I think I was just looking for a good push in the direction I wanted to go, and everybody seemed on the same page as me too. So, here it is, my soon-to-be apartment!



I'll be living very close to Osaka's oldest red-light district, Tobita Shinchi. According to a Japan Times article, it's been in operation since 1912. Maybe not a good place to tour with the folks, but honestly it's really fascinating. Let me clear it up here though, I've never paid for sex, nor will I; I'm personally over the moral dilemma of it, but I really don't see the point in paying for something, that's so much more fun, and safer, when it's free. But the setup is really fascinating. it's basically a district of storefronts, and at each store there is one woman sitting in a kimono on display in a very bright, nicely decorated room. Near the front of the store sits the oba-chan (Eng. trans. "grandmother," or "old lady") with a mirror at both sides of the storefront, giving her a good view of who's coming and going. The oba-chan, is kind of the pimp of the situation, though I imagine there's muscle around somewhere if needed. She invites guys in based on what the girl approves; in alot of cases they might say no foreigners, so the oba-chan will be ready and waiting with her forearms making an "X" in front of her (the Japanese gesture for "no"). On the other hand, the girl might be okay with foreigners, so when I guy like me walks by the oba-chan will say hello and welcome me to her store, usually making me irrupt in a fit of giggles and walking away with my head down like a schoolboy. Anyway, I bit of history you won't get in the classroom.

As for the less seedy side of my new place, I'll be a short bike ride to Namba and Tennoji--the big downtown spots here in Osaka--and just a few blocks form Den Den Town and Geek Street. Yes, all the electronics, maids, and animae I can handle. Don't worry, I won't be there too often. Though it will be nice to geekout here and there. (Pictures of the pad below! Notice, I gotta supply everything!)















Sleeping Together on Trains

As for sleeping on trains, I'm not sure if I posted on this before, but it really is a phenomonon worth mentioning again and again. Everybody here flatout sleeps on the train. Think of your commute as naptime. Folks will just passout on whoever might be next to them. It really makes for some interesting people watching. Once I saw a young girl, maybe 20, passed-out on an old salary man's (i.e. businessman) shoulder, and the salaryman was passed out on her head. It was something you could imagine young siblings doing, but I think these two were going to wake up to a lot of apologys and bowing. You'll see alot of folks sway, as well. Trying to stay awake, or at least up right, they'll move like trees in the breeze of our fishbowl subway car moving and stopping, moving and stopping. Here's some good documentation on it from Youtube. Don't be freaked out by the girl wearing here hat on her face, she's using it to block the sun for her Zs. #1 and #2. Sometimes young guys (well, old guys too) who've partied too hard will take off their shoes and just lie down.

Well, talking about sleep is really taking it out of me. So I'm outta here. Be in touch.

Ah, So...

(My birthday cake! My poetry students kicked ass this summer! I turned 29, which is really really old to teenagers, and to most of us around 29 too. The cake says "Happy Birthday" in Japanese.)

Wow, it's hard to believe it's been more than a year since my last post. I really should have kept up with this better, but so much was going on. So much, I really don't know where to begin. But enough good friends (K.Ro and my students to name a few) gave me a good nudge, so here it goes.

So let's start up with a one year sum up. Not long after my last post, I came out of my writing slump (euphemism for depression/verge of killing my computer) and had a string of publications. You can still find them if you google me, but here are a few of my prouder moments: Night Train, Softblow, Thieves Jargon and 42Opus . (I got another one coming up in 42Opus this October, so keep an eye out.)

In the middle of all of this the company I worked for, well, collapsed. (You'll might have to do some digging to get to the goods; things reached their peak flavor around September/October 2007.) So there I was, living in Japan without a job, along with just about all of my friends (not to mention 3000 other folks out here teaching English for Nova). There were some great stories--none of them mine, but many directly from friends: landlords coming into apartments, yelling in comprehensible things (since our behemoth of a company had the leases for most of our apartments and took the rent out of our paychecks, no paycheck no rent) and (in at least one, very tough-guy exception) keys being broken with bare, Hulk-like hands.

Me and my roommates, enjoyed our unemployment and the depression that came along with it in relative silence, well from our landlord at least. Thankfully, nobody even bothered us for rent, well for a long time at least. But back to the collapse. So, company collapses, I plan to come back to the US with 3 months salary owed to me when suddenly (we're in November 2007 here) another company (G.Communications) buys up what's left of Nova and promises to hire all of us back so we can be a big happy family again. Only problem was, the CEO of G.Comm was drunk (either with power or sake or both) when he said these things, because after giving me (and many others) 300,000¥ (about $3000.00) to promise our services after the New Year he sends out an email saying he regrets that about 1000 of us were up for adoption, a euphemism for still unemployed. This might not have been terrible news, had I not just returned from a vacation to the US (hey, I had a job now!) and gotten the news (did I mention it was via email?) on December 22nd. Yes, 12/22. And, yes, many people out here aren't Christian, but I'm sure this detail was overlooked by many a bitter upper-management, who (after destroying the company that was) all got their old jobs back.

So. Back in Japan, no job, I start collecting my unemployment insurance. I figured I could chill out for a few months, collect and go home with a story or two. Only in order to collect, I had to apply for jobs (damn Fascists) and it so happened that I found one that paid the bills, didn't ask a lot of hours from me and I actually enjoyed quite a lot. Don't laugh, but I teach kids now. Most of my students are between 6 and 12, but I have a few that range from 2 to 16. I spend a good part of my day doing silly dances (similar to my drunken attempts at clubs, but sober) singing the classics like Old McDonald, Head-Shoulders-Knees and Toes, etc. To tell the truth, I really get a kick out of it. And the kids really dig me! I mean, there is the whole thing that I'm an adult and a foreigner and all that, but they can tell I'm really cool outside of all of that. But really, I we have a lot of fun, when they're not driving me crazy.

So, I started this job back in April and soon after I got an offer to come back to Boston to teach a summer class at Emerson. (Thank you publications, teaching experience, and Tori!) So the plan was to let these folks at my new wonderful company down easy, but they wanted back, they told me Go have fun in Boston, do whatever you want, just please come back to us! Well, not quite like that, but really really close. So I left, taught my amazingly brilliant students the fundamentals of poetry (in the aptly named Fundamentals of Poetry) and the loathsome art of revision (in the aptly vague Writers Seminar) this summer, saw many of you--but not all of you, for which I'm truly sorry: I barely had time to sleep for the first 4 weeks--and high-tailed it back to Japan the day after classes ended.

So that gets me to now. Here I am trying to decide where to live and for how long. I really missed Japan while I was away; it really has become a home to me. But I know I can't stay here for life. And as 30 approaches (less than a year now, I can hear it in the distance like the drums of Mordor...) I know I really need to make up a new Exit Stratagy for season 3, when Steven actually gets off--and stays off--the island. But first I need to find an apartment. So far, the front runners are a place in the sticks that's really cheap and near my old digs, or a reasonably expensive place in Osaka's ghetto, a safe area but crawling with prostitutes. Yes, that's a bad thing. Hmm, town or country: even in Japan I can't escape this dillema.

Well, any advice--if there's anyone still out there--is welcome. I hope to get this blog going at a click again. A Click being a post about once-a-month or so. And of course, just like the olden days, here's some pictures that will not line up correctly with their intended taglines.









The poets and the cake













My Revision class, as usual, losing focus. ;) That's blurry me on the right, trying to explain Steven Millhauser by my apparent inability to keep it together.










A whole in the ground near chinatown, Boston.













Saying goodbye to Boston :(













Back to eating strange things in Japan with friends. Whoever told you lips and assholes aren't delicious is a liar.

Rainy Season Commence!

Hey everyone. Sorry again about the lateness of the post. To be honest, Japan has grown less exciting over the last few months. I mean, I'm used to the food, I've gotten used to the girls wearing skirts and shorts that just cover their asses and the guys that wear Looney Tunes
jumpsuits. Not to mention work is no longer new, and I have to show up 5 days a week. Somethings never change.

But here's some new stuff that's happened over the past month or so.

For starters, Rainy season has begun today. So for the next week its going to, well, rain. All week. Probably with a few really crazy storms thrown in just for the hell of it. Apparently, I'm lucky to be in Osaka because it gets a really mild rainy season. You know, Tsunami's etc. However, mild means it's as humid as New England in August right now and aiming to get worse by August out here. Well, as exciting as rain is, I have other events...

Event #2!

I went to Nara last month. To explain Nara to you, I'm going to quote an email that I sent to Kathy Rooney a few weeks ago. Sorry for not rewrite the whole thing, but I will take a moment to edit it. Anyway, here it is!

"As for Japan, I finally went to Nara and it was beautiful. If you don't know the place, it's a somewhat rural city with many famous shrines and temples and these tame deer that eat (sometimes steal) food out of your hand. The whole thing would seem kind of annoying if they weren't deer. It's really amazing, coming from a part of Pennsylvania where every so often I'd get close to a deer only to find us both shocked and it running away. At the same time, it's kind of sad. With all these tourist around, it's almost like a deer kegger. The deer just hang around and eat, some times chase tourist down if they catch a glimpse of those special deer wafers. Other than that, they just lie around and shit all the time, much to the amusement of teenagers on class trips.

"I also saw Toodai-ji, a gigantic bronze Buddha sits in the world's largest wooden building. It's funny, but as amazing as it was, it was a surprisingly different experience as being in a famous church. I'm not sure what I mean by that, but somehow spirituality (at least Buddhist and Catholic) seem pretty famliar. Or something like that. Anyway, the sculpture was jaw dropping, but not so much as the deer."

I'm still not sure what I mean about the spiritual parallels there. I think I'm still a little afraid to explore it actually. Anyway, read "familiar" however you like there: empty or omnipresent or both.

And finally Events #3 and 4!

First of all, I should point out that my lack of blogging has mostly been because I've been writing fiction and poetry regularly again (after about a year) and submitting again (after a little more than a year). And I've got some poem coming out pretty soon in some online zines (Night Train and Word Riot). So be waiting for a selfish email in the near future demanding that you read my work.

Also, I'm going to Okinawa and Tokyo in a few months. So prepare for some more pics there!

Speaking of which, if you want to see more of Nara, go to Face Book.

P.S.

Sorry to everybody I haven't been keeping in touch with as well as I should be. Lately I've been trying to catch up (hence the email to Kathy and Martin) but the longer it's been the more pressure I feel to knock it outta the park, which makes me sit here and weep on the keyboard, so patience please! I miss you all!

-Steve

"Dog is good, cats are good. Life is good. Don't move to Pittsburgh!"

The question on everybody's fingertips, or so I'd like to think, is when am I coming home. Someday, I know, I will leave Japan. I'm thinking maybe around November. The real problem comes with finding out exactly where home is now.

Option A: Boston

-I have friends there
-something like a network for finding a job; I'm pretty much set to start teaching high school in Boston; I just don't know if that's my future.
-Boston loves beer
Downside: I know Boston. I lived there and I love it. In other words: been there and it was really expensive.

Option B: NYC

-Center of the known universe. The heart of the creative world in which I someday hope to florish.
-Fascinating people and a flatout beautiful city. Everytime I visit it's harder to leave.

Downside: Expensive is no longer the word. I hear the new Webster includes "New York" as an adjective meaning ridiculous to even imagine affording. ex. "a New York apartment"

Option C: Pittsburgh

-Make the folks happy. They ain't getting younger, and I do miss them.
-Affordable. I could have a huge one-bedroom in a nice part of town for the price of my old Brighton share.
-I assume a good community for poets (Pitt's there after all). But I'm guessing if your not a student, you're a townie.

Downside: I'll likely want to kill myself after the first six-months of not having any luck finding a decent job and basically struggling just as much as I did in Boston, likely shelling out coffee again too. Not to mention I'll live less than an hour from my parents. An hour!

Option X: Unknown U.S. City

-Fascinating arts and music scene
-Low rents because the Matrix-esque yuppies haven't found this Eden yet.
-I'll be able to find a decent job or at least get by on my savings and have plenty of time to write and study up in the 12-story local library.

Downside: it's an unknown city, likely (if at all existent) to be found in a parallel dimension.

So that's your homework my fans in cyberspace. Tell me what the hell I should do. I want New York so bad I can taste it, but I don't want to work my ass off for $12 an hour anymore just so I can barely make rent.

Teach me oh wise friends.

Peace and Love from the Far East. Japan is still great. I've been writing and I have a poem coming out pretty soon in Word Riot. I'll keep you posted.

-Steve

If You Want To See Some Pictures..

Check out my Facebook

Language Difficulties

Well, this will be a sweet surprise to the one or two of you still visiting this site. Sorry it's been so long, but well, even being lazy here is hard work. I found this out as I tried to log into my blogger account about 2 hours ago. See, Blogger knows I'm in Japan--in fact, they probably know my address etc from my IP. Internet=Police State--but it doesn't seem to realize that I have the vocabulary of... of... well an American. So I had to do some creative button pushing. Anyway, I'm back in the Matrix, baby! Now here's a dose of Japan at it's finest!

So I have a new Language Exchange. This is a position that has many definitions, so I'll start with the standard. So I have two Language Exchanges, both are Japanese women who speak English better than I speak Japanese and basically we hangout and try to teach each other each other's language. Now, my definition has basically boiled down to me having laughs and occasionally throwing little dried food at people twice a month with Yumiko
and having Mineko teach me Kansai Ben (that's Japanese of the local dialect, which is just way cooler than the stuff in the books) in the finest cheap restaurants of Namba.

Now, the popular definition can be summed up by an often angry J-girl friend of mine as "Fluid Exchange." Basically, it's away for Japanese girls who are interested in Western guys to meet Western guys who are interested in having lots sex. Which you can't blame them for really. I mean, these are guys, most of them just out of college, in a foreign country on vacation, not to mention that Western guys are even more exotic to Japanese girls since theres so few of us here. There's a bulletin board at the International House in Tennoji that serves as a kind of free education/ personals room. For the record, I have yet to get romantic with anybody I met as a Language Exchange, it just seems too desperate. However, the one Japanese girl I did date for a while wound up being a huge help to my learning. I got a ton of great words including but not limited to: kawaii (cute) kushii (beautiful) usotsuki (liar). (That last ones for laughs, laughs both funny (omoshiroi by the way is funny) and paranoid.)

Anyway, my other language difficulty is finding good reading. Though many of my friends have some great books and the library has a few gems and there is a fantastic bookstore in Shinsaibashi that has a better fiction selection than Brookline Booksmith, I am going through poetry withdrawl. I want the new Aaron Anstett book. I want the new Bill Knott book. I want to find new poets and find old books by poets I love but have read too little of (including but not limited to Stephen Dobyns, Bob Hicok, Mark Halliday, and on and on).

Well, afraid I gotta stop there. Me and a friend are going to the Italian place across the street to get some J-Italian food; you know seafood pizza, mayo on everything, etc.. I love the little button you press to get the waiter to come over.


BONUS!
Japanese Fun Facts:

Dog's don't say bow-wow, or woof, they say "wan-wan" like whan whan. And cat's say "neya" oh and bells go "ping-pong"

Ok, that's all I got. Oh, and I miss Kurt Vonnegut.

The Mystery Vortex (Which as I Wrote Became to be Mostly about Porn)

It's strange that I've been here for four months. When I think about it, it seems like the time went so fast, like I just got here. Well, sometimes. Othertimes I feel like I actually live here. Like this is life as it's been for several years. I mean, I went to the bookstore today, and I swear to God the sales clerk kind of knew what I was saying and (even scarier) I kind of understood her. To make matters worse, when I point at myself (which I do alot more too) instead of pointing at my chest I put my index-finger on the tip of my nose, which is what everyone over here does. I think when I get back to the States I'm going to get beat-up for this. Hell, if you saw it, you'd think I deserve it.

Other strange habits I've picked up: When I say goodbye to Japanese friends I say "see you," but I don't just say "see you" I say it like this: "SEEEEEE YOUUUUUUUU." And whatelse... Oh, I speak superslow, which I guess will balance me out, becuase I think many American's had trouble understanding my mumbling. Those are the worst I can think of right now, but I'm sure there's many other's that will come up when I finally come back to my old planet.

Oh and another really fun thing about Japan that you won't see in the Animae: Gangsta rap is huuuuuge here. It's funny too, because they have no idea what the words mean. You'll be sitting in McDonald's or walking around a department store without paying much attention, when all of the sudden you realize the song on the stereo is about killing snitches or having sex in some of the raunchiest ways you may or may not have experimented with.

Then again, maybe they do know the lyrics, or some of them. Modesty is a much different creature out here. It's not uncommon to see some boobs on network TV, whether in a prime time movie or on this striptease photo-shoot show that advertises love hotels in the Osaka area. Or so I've been told. There's also alot of very open poster advertisements for S&M shows all over the city. Well, occasionally. Look, it's not just me noticing this stuff. Still, it's a little strange to be walking around the city, looking for a bite to eat or a checking out all the strange stores, and find yourself wondering why this bare chested woman is tied up with a red ball a'la Pulp Fiction in her mouth. I'm certain that most of this is a result of the mosaic law they have about porn here.

Huh? Oh yeah, somebody told me about this too... Really, I'm not some kind of pervert now that I'm here (at least no worse than before) but these things are really interesting. In fact, I've had a great idea for a dissertation if I ever decided to get a PhD in Anthropology about the porn of different cultures, but that can wait. So, yeah, for some reason it's illegal to show genitalia in Japanese porn. I think this might have been something the U.S. demanded back in the occupation days. So any porn (not cartoons though) has to have all the sweet spots mosaiced out. It my opinion that this has led to an explosion of fetish...

And I think I'll stop there and get on to some innocuous pictures.






OSAKA JOE!!!! Well, Actually Osakajo.






























































Mmmmmm, lunch. Oh and everybody who likes raw Octopus (not featured in pic) back home (I know there's so many of you), it actually taste good here.











Language exchange gone dangerously distracted: