Beastie Boys: Live at the Budokan

Here are some photos from the recent Beastie Boys concert in Tokyo. Or should I say the really great Beastie Boys concert in Tokyo. There was a questionable opening act (Le Tigre), which everyone thought was made up of three girls but the high kick section of the performance showed everyone that one of the girls had a set of man balls. I thought they sounded a little New York breathy like Yeah, Yeah, Yeah's and similar to but a little more funky rock/retro than Sleater Kinney. I later found out that one of the lead singers was the head of Bikini Kill all those years ago so that probably explains it. After those hosers took off and the Beastie Boys finally hit the stage it was an hour and a half of booty shakin'.



MikeD started the set with a 5 minute bit of scratching and record bending and behind the backing playing up the crowd then AdRock, MikeD, and MCA jumped up on stage and into eggman, and didn't stop until they were far into their material. Lots of older songs (Body Movin', Brass Monkey, ect) and stuff from their new album (chk chk chk it out, Open letter to New York). Then about 2/3's the way threw they went back stage leaving the crowd to catch their breath and watch some funny videos on the big screen.

Some of the pieces where shot outside before the show of attendees requesting songs, telling stories of why they're there, and some guys rapping to the camera. And some of the videos where of there own creation.



One of which was of (I think) the percussionist (fat man with an afro) sitting in front of the camera listening to Limp Bizket, taking a big bong hit and holding... holding... holding... then weaving and leaning and eventually smacking his head into the table making the music skip and chipping his tooth in the process.



After the videos were finished, the lights dimmed even more, and some ambiance music came from the speakers. Then a patio lantern rimmed stage was wheeled front and center carrying the band, in cheesy foam blue ruffled suits and their gear with it.



For the next 15 minutes or so they dove into their jazz material which was awesome and really quiet and low key. Then things picked up a little more and more and more and for the final blow they got into Sabotage and actually got the Japanese crowd (unrequested mind you) into a froth and crowd surfing and the whole deal. They had so much momentum leading up to that moment so that when it hit it was just crazy and had everybody going nuts and jumpin around.



You'll notice I don't have any pictures posted at that time cause it was about the last thing I wanted to do everybody was so caught up. I did have a little low-res video recording on my camera, but it's shaking so much that it's almost unwatchable. The audio is still ok though, but I can hear myself and I sound like an idiot (drunk?) so that one's just for me.



Then in typical Japanese fashion, once 9 o`clock hit, the house lights turned on and they exited stage left.



The show was really cool just for being at the Budokan in the first place. This is the big sumo arena for those that don't know and it is a huge yard surrounded by thick, tall walls and a large moat all protecting this big Japanese styled building. Inside is a ringed colluseum type set up, where half of it was blocked off because the band was in the middle floor/"pit" and it would suck to have to watch everything from the back. This place usually focuses on sumo matches in a small ring so all of the seating is situated as close as possible to the center and nothing is very far away. Even if you had a seat in the back you'd still think it was a pretty good seat. I never thought we'd be as close as we were and we weren't that close compared to other seats. I could see what color their sun glasses were from my seat which is pretty good.

Also being in Tokyo I imagined the place to be swarming, but there was a pleasant amount of people there. I'm not sure the total, but I'd say it was in the ball park of 3-4,000. Not that much at all anyway so it was more intimate than I expected too.

I have some other low-res clips from the show I can email out to some friends if they want. Just send me an email and I'll send a few off to you.

Gee, ya think?

Scientists discovered a new gene, that when mutated, causes other genes to become corrupt and form into cancer. Scientists call this new mutated gene, "POKEMON".

"The investigators confirmed Pokemon's cancer-causing role by inserting the oncogene into mice. Pokemon does its damage by repressing the function of other proteins, including a tumor suppressor called ARF. The mice developed aggressive, fatal forms of lymphoma. In further work, using a technique called tissue micro arrays to study tumor samples from people with many types of cancer, they confirmed that Pokemon is present in very high levels in certain types of B-cell and T-cell lymphomas. They also found that tumors with high levels of Pokemon protein were much more likely to be aggressive."

And to think that 10 years ago when Pokemania was in full swing and all parents across North America called the little buggers "The New Cancer!" were right all along. That'll take a while to sink in.

Another funny thing is that when scientists are naming a newly found anything, they usually break down what Latin or periodical or whatever 7 syllable name to give it something easy to call it by, but this time it looks like they go way out of their way to make "Erythroid Myeloid Ontogenic" or POK(what???) into Pokemon.

Nintendo had this to say, "Huh, well how about that. We're responsible for cancer."

Keep rollin` rollin` rollin` rollin` what? Keep rollin`...

Last year, the PS2 saw one of the most original games to hit the shelf in a long time. The game was Katamari Damacy and you were the prince of the universe You came to earth with a sticky ball to roll around picking up everything starting with the smallest things and gradually working your way up, to build a new planet for the king.

The gameplay was addictive but not as much as glorious music. Ranging from rock, to folk twang, to hip-hop, the songs covered everything but usually played around with a very simple cord structure that you'll be humming for the next few weeks.

You can find the soundtrack here but I don't know how long they'll be hosted so get on them fast. Might I recommend tracks 7, 9, 12 and 16. You should really hear them all but these are catchy if you're in a hurry.

P r o x i f y.com

Can't access certain web pages from school or work because of filters? Lower case no blanks.

Strange Days: I told you so

If anyone has been to the country side in Japan before then I'm positive they will remember the big uncovered gutters that run along the sides of the roads. If you don't know what I'm talking about just look at the picture and you should be up to speed with the rest of us.

For some reason someone on the highway committee thought it would be a good idea to put a gutter a foot and a half deep and a tire width wide along the sides of all the narrow country roads. For a reason or for sport? You decide.


Seems they caught themselves some game right here. There's going to be Pajero Jr. on the menu come this Easter!

With the resent snow fall I found a few more cars with their tires caught up but didn't have a chance to get a picture. Something tells me I'll have more opportunities in the future.

I could understand wanting to make some drainage areas along the roads with the amount of rain Japan gets on occasion, but at least cover them or make them narrower than your average tire or shallow enough to be able to get yourself out once you got yourself in. Or even some shoulders on the roads would be suffice for maneuvering in sticky situations.

The funny thing about this particular car was that the reverse lights were on but there was nobody in the vehicle when I drove past. Unless it were a chimpanzee at the wheel. Then it would change from funny to just plain amazing.

Nick-Nack-Patty-Hack

If you're like me you've probably got a huge monkey on your back begging you to push every button on every vending machine you see, right? Obviously. Now you can actually put your button pushing hobby to use and hack those sonsabitches into giving you free cokes, two for ones or just check in on how they are doing like any loving person would do.

To learn how to get your hack on click here. But your should remember that this is stealing, and coke will find you and make you give them their pop back. This is for informational purpose only and I do not assume responsibility for anything that comes of it.

Back to School (to prove to dad that I'm not a fool...)

(...got my lunch packed up, my boots tied tight...I hope I don't get in a fight....OOO, Back to school, back to school, back..to....school)

Just had to get that out.

So yes, today is my first day back to work from a refreshing winter holiday break. Only had two classes today, an ok lunch and some free time to update the blog which should be more frequent now that I'm back to the routine.

A teacher also told me "I have no kids so why did you write on my new years card that my kids have gotten bigger?" Seems I got some of the new years cards mixed up when I was writing the little messages. oops! I wonder what the other teachers got and if they'll tell me what I wrote was weird or not...

Winter holidays were good. Got out to Tokyo to visit some friends and visit the "Mysteries of the Human Body" exhibit that put cadavers on display in all sorts of interesting poses highlighting key parts of the body. (LOTS of dudes. Ever seen a skinned penis? I have. The scientist guys must have figured the bigger the bris the better.) And at the end, your invited to handle a human brain and touch human muscle. Brains are heavy! Muscle is soft! Bleh!

It was really interesting but I had a heavy feeling about 5 minutes through the displays after the um-teenth time I reminded myself that they were real bodies everyone was looking at. And the kids! Oh the kids and their mothers! Not on display but there as patrons. So many little girls eye balling everything. Not freaking out mind you, they acted interested and everything, but maybe the mysteries of the magnet would have been more suitable for their age.

Kids are going up so fast these days I just can't keep up. I can just imagine some day having to pull my 5 year old out of the strip club and lecturing him on the way home about kid stuff and adult stuff. I guess it would have been a good experience for them, starting them thinking about mortality and stuff.

Here's the home page: Mysteries of the Human Body

At the top of the page; the 6th,8th and 10th "button" have some good pictures of some of the displays. On the "10th button page" click down the side links for some more interesting pictures of people at the show looking at the exhibits.

I also got out to the ski hill (Kusatsu) last weekend to cap off the winter break for some much needed fresh air. Snow was all right, but it was a bit of a lazy mountain good for coasting. "No shredding allowed" must have been the slogan there. I just gots ta shred but it'll have to wait for another day.

Strange Days: Baby Bong

So I mentioned that Fridays have turned into a bit of spectacle and a recent Friday was no different.

What happened will forever be burned into my mind. Yumiko mailed me at work asking if I'd like to join her for supper at her friends house. I agreed and mosyed over after work. While the girls were preparing supper I entertained the two boys in the house, one seven years old and the other a year and a half.

Satoshi, the littlest one is a real cutie, but he had a cold and was dripping out of everywhere and had to have his nose constantly wiped. Somebody has to explain to me someday, how kids can make that much snot so quickly, it's just not natural.

After supper was prepared we all sat down and chatted and ate and Satoshi was really fidgetty and obviously uncomfortable with his predicament. His mother seeing this then craned over to the boy and layed on him what looked like, from my perspective, a very deep kiss. But upon leaning over for a closer look I discovered that she had formed a seal around his nose and proceeded to take a long pull of snot, enough to make his eyes cross.

And *puht* spit her treasure into a tissue and toss it in the garbage.

"Oh, I'm sorry" she laughs "you're eating."

I don't care if I was gutting a cow, that was probably one of the grossest things I've ever seen.

Not one to dilute my reaction I burst out with an "AWWWW, GROSSS!! What did you do that for!!"

And yumiko and her looked at each other like, "Is he serious?" And they explained to me that it's not like she ate it or anything. She spit it out and it's her own baby so it's ok. Then told me that because I'm a guy and I've never seen it before that I would be surprised like that, but if I were to ask my mom or foreign women, I would find that it's natural for a mom to suck the mucus out of her child's nose using her mouth.

And ask I did. I found that the women teachers in my school (in Japan) thought nothing of it and that Canadian people thought it was disgusting. They explained that because of the spread of germs you should use a little booger sucking turkey baster device for the job. And not your mouth.

I'm not an expert on babies but I don't want whatever it is causing all the snot in the child in the first place so the baby baster thing sounds like the route I'd take. And not sucking it out with my mouth. I think there is some kind of motherly/parental love that I have yet to learn.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone.

Instead of going to Tokyo this year to do a count down I opted to stay in town and go to a friends house with Yumiko for some supper, drinks and board games. Played the Game of Life and some Jenga and got drunk on wine so it was all right.

Also today we had the most snow fall I've ever seen in this area of Japan. I think Tokyo got some snow too which is rare. We got about 15 cm spread throughout the day and I thought I'd be snowed in, unable to go out for the night. But slowly and surely I warmed up my little car's engine having to keep the throttle a little open to prevent a stall and sped off down the slick streets at a blazing 20km. Arrived ok and drank some beer and made a snowman with the 7 year old of the house.

Later we watched tv like all good Japanese do on New Years Eve (K1/Pride, a faster version of UFC) and stopped our rousing game of Mahjong (Doraemon Edition) for the count down into 2005. Funny, the two times I've ever played Mahjong have both been on New Years Eve. I've become boring in my old age.

Email me and tell me what you did for the night.
今年もよしくお願いします！