On May 1st my friend and I went to check out an friend-of-a-friend’s daughter’s band, Channel Bitch, at Club Roots in Koenji. They did a pretty good job for having only been together a few months.
What was more interesting was the band that followed them was also a “bitch” band… モンロー・ビッチ (Monrrow Bitch). I’d never heard of the ero rock duo before that day, but apparently one of the two, Asuka Sawamoto, recently made headlines when she was arrested in Akihabara for flashing her panties to the throngs of otaku snapping pics of her in their crotch-swelling admiration.
And why did she get arrested? Well, for showing her panties, of course. This in the land of 2-inch long “skirts” on schoolgirls and pedophile porn at every corner. And she was probably only 30 metres away from places where a guy can get a 3000 yen blow job or drop 5000 yen to fuck a sex doll. Japan makes so much sense at times.
Due to their recent newsworthiness, TBS was in our little Koenji club to capture their show in its entirity. And, as I was the only “visible” gaijin in the house, they came to us after the show to get my opinion. They asked me such ground-breaking questions as “Do you like sexy?” I still need to hunt down the interview footage, but according to my friend it’s less than flattering. Thus, all the more reason to locate it!
Unfortunately, the video quality sucks because all I had was my keitai, but here’s a couple:
NOTE: as all vids are from my mobile phone (and in 3GPP2 video format), those competitor-killing monopolistic fucks at Youtube, Dailymotion, etc. will only show the first 15 seconds of my uploads. I’m in the process converting the vids to an “acceptable” format and will upload soon so they can be seen in their entirity.
モンロー・ビッチ (Monrrow Bitch):
and CHANNeL★Bitch:
Rounding out the show were 音裸 (who we missed as they were the opening act), and ラミ子 (Ramiko) who were more than entertaining. Here’s a taste of ラミ子:
Taking into consideration Moore’s Law about technology doubling every two years or so, it’s not surprising to see the leaps and bounds “fun technologies” (ie: consumer goods, gadgets, and gizmos) have grown by recently. During my last tour of duty in Japan (2003-2004) there was really no such thing as “streaming video”. Sure, the technology may have existed, but there weren’t a bazillion sites where I could watch episodes of Western TV shows on the net two hours after they aired live in North America. We still had to download via P2P back then!
It’s been a long but short 4 years. A new blockbuster hits theatres in America on the 21st… and we’ve already been watching DVD-quality versions of it online since the 15th.
And live streaming sports? Forget about it. Oh wait… exactly. Forget about it.
I woke up at a bone-creaking 4:45am this morning to watch the Canada-Finland game at the IIHF World Championships. I thought to myself: “no longer do I have to miss out on any live event. Everything’s on the internet!” And I was right and wrong all at the same time.
I should have been expecting it however. Most (legal/real/corporate/etc) streaming sites (such as Fox On Demand have regional requirements. Why? Advertising. Burger King knows that I’m not going to fly from NRT to LAX to buy a 99 cent Whopper. They want a regionally-accessible consumer audience watching their ads. Not a bunch of hungry armchair goalies across the Pacific… even if they are craving a square of greasy cow fat and pig’s innards slapped between two halves of freeze-dried yeast. (And we are.)
So, as I logged on with glee to the live site of “Canada’s Sports Leader” TSN I was none too thrilled to see the message (after being permitted to view the requisite Molson ad) come up in the video space stating: This video is only available within Canada. Fuck.
I went to the closet and checked in my bag and found it. Yep, I’m Canadian. It says so on my passport. But was I able, as should be the God-given right of all Canadians, to watch Canada de-gill the Finns? Nope. Cuz I’m in Japan.
So in a MacGyver-like moment, I assessed my situation, took in my surroundings, and took inventory of what I had to work with: I wanted to get the Canada-Finland game live, was in a studio apartment in Tokyo, and had a latop, internet connection, gas stove, and sofa to work with. I deftly navigated to The Fan 590, “Canada’s leading sports radio station”, using my laptop and internet connection. Then, after a quick rummage through the adjacent fridge, I whipped up a 3-egg veggie & roast ham omelette utilizing the gas stove. Finally, I reclined on the sofa, enjoyed the omelette and listened to the game via The Fan 590’s live (yes, live everywhere) radio broadcast.
It’s funny… we can listen but we can’t see. It’s a rather fucked-up logic these corporate twits live by. Aural broadcasting outside one’s coveted consumer market is OK, but visual broadcasting is a cardinal sin. I think blind people should be insulted.
So with with all these increases in bit rates and improvements in compression and milestones in monitors… I found myself catching the game like my grandpa did when he was in Japan: on the radio. Oh wait… there were no games bewteen 1940-1946. But the pont is, ham radio or ham omelette, it’s comforting to know that advances in technology haven’t irradicated everything from the past. For when our advancements become our disadvantages (new word: disadvancement), we become a civilization destined to [insert rest of deep thought here].
The weekend’s new imo-jochu was Hageatama. It was the recommendation of the ladies working the sake shop next door to my building, after I asked for a light, non-stinky, sweet potato shochu that’s good to drink on the rocks.
I’m not sure whether their recommendation was supposed to be a little joke on the folically-challenged gaijin (hage atama means “bald-headed”), but they were right on the yen about this tasty little bottle from Kumamoto.
It’s not pungent at all and a very easy sip over ice. Not a bad introductory shochu for my novice palette, balding or not.
After 16 months in Japan I figure it’s finally time to get a better understanding of things Japanese. And what better thing to start with than booze? So two weeks ago, while at an old school ryokan in the onsen town of Ureshino in Saga Prefecture, I decided to start my schooling in shochu. Weaker than whiskey but stronger than wine (and sake).
As I was in Saga, I started out with Tenzan (pictured left). Not so coincidentally, it happened to be the choice of my host as well. It was good. Light and easy to drink. And drink it we did.
Sunday: Next up was another Kyushu shochu at a Miyazaki-themed izakaya in Asagaya. My friend’s wife recommended: Tomi No Hozan. It too was good.
Tuesday: We went to my favorite yakitori-ya, Miyagawa near Koenji Station’s South Exit. I tried my first shiso-based shochu. Shiso is sometimes referred to as “Japanese basil”. Does it make for good liquor? Nope. It was like drinking the forest floor. I can’t remember the name of it, but I don’t see any more shiso shochu (say that 10 times fast) in my near future anyway.
On the way home from Miyagawa we picked up a bottle of Kurokirishima from 7-11. It’s another imo-jouchu (sweet potato shouchu) from Miyazaki. It’s 24% alcohol, made with black koji mold, and got a sharp (kinda “skunky”) aftertaste.
Anyway, it’s Friday. Time for me to get to work on making my way through The Nikkei’s Top 10 Shochu on the rocks.
Gettin’ back to the blog. May as well start out with some old material from last summer in Shinjuku. An ALTA store promotion with girls in kimonos dancing along to Avril Lavigne. Coincidentally, it was on Canada Day.
The final “hurdle” (or rather, pebble) in Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick is now overcome. Those wily European Union regulators approved the $3.1 billion acquisition on Tuesday saying the deal will not hurt competition for online ads. And that may be true. AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft may still have a fighting chance in the online ad game.
However, a few years ago DoubleClick bought a little SEO/SEM shop called Performics for the bargain-basement price of $58 million. So now Google owns Performics. Google has the world’s leading search engine. Performics does search engine optimization. Conflict of interest? Naaaa.
So it seems that people are finally catching up to me and starting to see the evil that lies behind those fun & bubbly blue, yellow, red and green letters. Well, at least in the comments on the recent TechCrunch article, that is.
