Blahgorrhea

I cleaned up my bookcase and decided to get rid of some books. I left them sitting in a box for a week, planning to just take them to Goodwill, but then it hit me that I could sell them, and since I had recently inadvertently signed up for a seller’s account on Amazon.com, I figured “what the hell.” So I posted about 20 books for sale. Within 5 hours, two of them had sold. I was very excited. I packaged them up and sent them off, having pocketed about $8.00 those sales. Then when I got back from the post office, another book had sold. The next day, two more sold. I was in seven heaven, making money with practically no effort, ridding myself of books taking of space in my apartment, and sending books to people who wanted them. I was so happy with Amazon. But then… nothing. After that first 24 hour period of spectacular sales, not one book has been purchased in the subsequent weeks. Do you want some? Here’s what I am selling.

Pickles. I love them, and Japan has some of the best pickles in the world (as well as some damn good kim chee borrowed from Korea). Better still, they serve you pickles at every meal, including breakfast. Different pickles for different meals or dishes, and always just a small amount — just enough to help with digestion. Even better, all of the markets have tons of different pickles for sale with samples of them all; you could have a small pickle meal just walking through the markets. Radishes, carrots, burdock, cucumbers, things I can’t identify but that look like sea monkeys. And they all taste so good, fermented in miso, sake and other exotic brine ingredients.

A couple things I appreciated about the Japanese meal time experience: towels, tea, and the check. The meal starts off with a warm towel to wipe your hands with. No need to travel to the bathroom to clean your hands before eating (where you would probably end up with cold wet hands anyway). And then you get a cup of hot tea, which typically stays full throughout the meal. With the cold weather outside, this hot tea is a welcome respite, and most places serve a good brew of dark green tea. One place served smoked tea, which was impressively good, and if I knew how to distinguish smoked tea from the hundreds of other teas available at the markets, I would have brought some back for myself. Finally, when you are finished ordering, the check is left at the table and when you decide to leave, you take the check to the register, settle up and take off. For a foreigner especially, this makes the conclusion of a meal easy, but it also serves another good purpose: to separate the food handlers (the wait staff) from the money handlers (the hosting staff). Makes a nice psychological division as well as a practical cleanliness one.

The Japanese do not bathe in the morning. That’s just what they do. they wake up, eat some kind of weird breakfast consisting of a combination of pork, noodles and seaweed and then head out to work dirty. But when they return home for dinner, assuming they have not gotten piss drunk with their colleagues, they shower and soak briefly in a stiflingly hot tub before eating dinner. In a traditional household, I suppose they even wrap themselves in a lightweight kimona called a yukata for their dinner. That is how Jen and I ate our meal at the mountain top temple in Koya-san, and it is a very civilized way to end your day.

Squat toilets, more commonly known as “Japanese style” toilets in Japan, are the ones that pretty much resemble a hole in the ground with some added plumbing. No, these toilet are not the most comfortable to use, but in terms of cleanliness, assuming you manage to keep from pooping on your pants, the Japanese style toilet cannot be beat. You don’t touch anything with your bare skin that someone else has touched, assuming like me, you push the flush lever with your foot. Sure, these toilets don’t work for the American standard of relaxing on the crapper for a half hour as you read the Sunday Times, but I am not advocating these things for use in American homes, only in public locations where many people use the same toilet. But I definitely do not advocate their use on trains, airplanes, buses or anything else that moves. That is a disaster waiting to happen.

After six years of seeing Frank Chu wander the streets of San Francisco, I finally, and unexpectedly, heard him speak. I had just assumed that he was a quiet protester, making his point larger than life by being a constant fixture in the city. I was quite taken aback when I heard him yelling outside of the Old Navy on Market Street. At first, I didn’t believe it was him speaking, but sure enough the loud gravely and angry voice came directly from his voice box. Or maybe it was the voice box implanted in him by aliens. Who knows?

In stark contract to The Constantines who preceded The Hold Steady at tonight’s show, these guys know how to rock. The lead singer is a frantic manic talk-singer with a nervous twitch, singing crazy lyrics and backed up by a hard rocking band. The lead guitarist knows how to have fun on stage without looking like a tool. The bassist did his own thing in good style, which is what makes a bassist cool, while the drummer kept a solid beat with nice breaks. The keyboardist, who I will refer to as “The Frenchman,” was totally out of place with the rest of the band (he should have been playing with The Arcade Fire), but he kicked some ass in his own way, lifting a bottle of red wine to his lips as the guitarist and bassist sipped from a bottle of Beam. This band has a unique musical style and tons of energy; they know how to get the crowd pumped. When the lead singer ended the evening with the words, “This was the best night of my life,” you really believed that’s what he thought and not just a line he gives every audience, though I’m sure tomorrow night might bring the best night of his life again.

Jon Stewart is a funny guy, and while he’s not a great impressionist, his “hee-hee-hee” impersonating Bush’s laugh makes me crack up.

They may not be elegant, but they are simple and cheap. Oh, and they are pretty damn durable, too.

“What am I talking about,” you may be asking. I’m talking about accessories like wallets, notebook holders, and whatnot made out of only duct tape. The original inspiration for this comes straight from the source, but I was intrigued by the design for the Ducster, a wallet to hold a Hipster PDA. I modified the design quite a bit to suit my own tastes, and I had a great time playing around with it. I wonder if more people would want more accessories like this? I’m considering playing around with a wallet that fits my needs and maybe even using that clear packaging tape instead of duct tape. I bet that would look sweet!

My friend Seiken has a band called Foxtail Somersault. It is wall of sound, shoe-gazing music. Lots of layers. Lots of electronics that Seiken plays with as he cranks on his guitar. They really quite good. They play at the Make-Out Room tonight, so if you live in San Francisco, you should go.