May 14 - Do You Like Disco?

"If you were going to be jogging in a few hours, what's the last thing on this menu you'd want to eat?"
"That would be a very difficult question, sir. But I would have to say the chicken masala."
"Great, give me that, a nan, and a Kingfisher."
"Very good, sir."
I'm at a curry house in Akihabara, Tokyo. Just downstairs is Club Goodman, a live house where very soon I will be seeing a concert featuring four different line-ups of Acid Mothers Temple, Japan's premier psychedelic noise freakout collective. I jogged here from my apartment about five or six kilometers away. After it is finished, I will jog home. I've now added jogging as a mode of transportation, and why not? It's faster than walking, great exercise, and running through the streets of Tokyo never fails to make me love this city more than I already do.
And the run here tonight was great. Unseasonably cool for May, weaving in and out of salarymen, school uniforms, and sidewalk cyclists to end up in Akihabara, where I added otaku and maids to the role call of Tokyoites I had to juke my way through to get here. And I look forward to doing it again on the way home.
But first, Acid Mothers Temple. When I get to the club, the chick in front of me is wearing nothing but a black leather bikini. This can only be a good sign.
By the way, I've come here alone (Not that I'm foreshadowing me hitting on the bikini chick, because I'm not, OK? OK?). My girlfriend isn't into Acid Mothers Temple, and I didn't put the hard sell on her or any of my friends because--how do I say this without sounding like a dick?--they're not for everyone. They're loud, like jackhammer having angry make-up sex with your ear loud. And they're hard and they're dark, and their music is churning and out there and sludgy and coarse and demonic. And they're almost impossibly prolific, having released more than 40 albums in the last 10 years. And they rock.
Tonight's show is billed as four separate acts--Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Cosmic Blues Band, Acid Mothers Temple and the Cosmic Inferno, Acid Mothers Temple SWR, and Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso UFO--but it's really one group. Throughout the night, different members of the AMT collective--a jumbled Manson family-esque hodge podge of outlaws and freaks--rotate on and off the stage, and the music never stops. Muddy psychedelic blooze segues into droning kraut rock that builds to a deafening assault of white noise before giving way to a single, dreamy, beatific acoustic guitar solo that gradually leads into a searing noise rock odyssey to the outer reaches of the stratosphere. It goes on like this for three and a half hours straight.
And when it's over, after head Mother Kawabata Makoto has destroyed his guitar and the rest of the group have left the stage and guitarist Tsuyama Atsushi has come back on to sing auld lang sayne in Japanese before saying goodnight, after all that, the applause is kind of muted, but it's not because the audience is disappointed. I've been to a lot of shows. And the audience dug this one. They're light on applause because they're exhausted. It's been a monster of a show.
I go back upstairs and out onto the streets and run home. I hope the chicken masala doesn't turn out to have been a bad decision.

May 13 - Baseball Dads

How about you? You play any sports back in high school?
Yeah, baseball.
Baseball, huh? Were you any good?
Decent, yeah. Made all-state in my senior year.
Easy there, Glory Days.
What's that?
I said, 'Easy there, Glory Days.' You know, like the song?
OK?
You know, Springsteen?
Yeah, I know it. So?
Yeah, so high school was a long time ago. You should move on. Everybody else has.
You asked me if I was any good, and I answered you.
Yeah, I asked you if you were any good. Didn't ask you to rattle off your greatest achievement from, what, 20 years ago? Seriously, slugger. Nobody cared then, and nobody cares now.
Who--what?
Ah, I'm just screwing around.
Oh . . . OK.
(about a minute later)
So, what do you do?
Me? I'm in finance.
No kidding. Like, banking, investments, shit like that?
Yes. Shit like that.
Must be doing pretty all right for yourself, huh?
Well, you know. We're comfortable.
Well, put your hands together for Mr. Gekko. OK, I get it. You're rich. Don't mean your shit don't stink.
Dude, you asked me how I was doing and I said I'm comfortable. What's the--
Hey, don't get defensive, Wall Street. We're just talking here.
Look, I--
Come on, I'm just messing with you.
Fine, whatever.
(another minute later)
What about you?
What about me, what?
Did you play any sports back in high school?
No.
So, what'd you do? You work? Were you in any activities?
I was on the yearbook staff.
Seriously?
Yeah. Why?
No, it's just that I was on yearbook at my high school, too.
Really? Well, whoopity fucking do. Baseball AND yearbook. Freaking fascinating. Tell me: Would you rather I suck your dick right now, or should I wait until after the game so our sons can watch?
All right, that's it.
Ooh, am I making you uncomfortable? Come on, man. Don't walk away. I think we're really starting to hit it off.
(another minute later)
Hey, honey. Who was that?
One of the other parents.
Oh. Was he nice?
Nah. Total asshole. Wouldn't stop talking about himself and his Wall Street job and how great a baseball player he was back in high school. Total loser.
Oh, that's too bad.
Yeah. Oh well, screw him. How was your day?
Great.
Great? Yeah, what happened?
Oh, I don't want to brag.
Come on, tell me.
Well, I got a couple of calls about the Waterstone property.
Ooh. Way to go, Trump.
What?
I said, that's great.

May 12 - Packrat

He got it from his father, who'd gotten it from his father, who'd gotten it from the Great Depression: the inability to throw anything away, the feeling that you never knew when you were going to need those old newspapers or that broken bicycle pump or that set of encyclopedias from the early 70s that was missing seven or eight volumes, so you held on to it. And the more stuff you held on to, and the longer you held on to it, the harder it became to let yourself throw anything away.
So he didn't.
His house was filled: Boxes upon boxes of old electric, gas, water, and phone bills, videotapes, loose photographs, shopping bags, empty shampoo bottles, garbage bags filled with crushed aluminum cans, stacks of flower pots, broken TVs, stereo components, bundles of magazines bound with twine, an RCA Videodisc Player.
The hallways were tighter than crawlspaces, with encroaching heaps of junk closing off the passable space like cholesterol closing off arteries.
The basement was a network of tunnels through decades of broken furniture, piping, scrap metal, lumber, bicycle parts, auto parts, and railroad ties. Slot machines, carousel horses, signs for businesses that had been bankrupt since before he was born.
No garbage ever went out. He had one stack for egg cartons, one for tin cans, another for milk cartons, junk mail, light bulbs, orange peels, coffee grounds, toilet paper rolls, cereal boxes, olive pits, bread crumbs, aerosol cans, dryer lint, saltine cracker sleeves, paint cans.
The fire destroyed all of it.
He was at work when it happened. By the time they got in touch with him, it was too late for it to matter.
It burned for days. When it was finished everything was gone.
Faulty wiring, they said.
He moved in to a hotel. Compared to his old bedroom, the hotel room was so wide open it was like sleeping in the middle of a football field.
On the first morning after the fire was completely extinguished, he got a cup of coffee from the vending machine in the hotel lobby. After he finished it, he held on to the cup, thinking he might use it again later.

May 11 - The Email

New Office Regulations
From: George Peterson (Gpeterson@lipman.com)
Sent: Tues 5/11/10 1:49 AM
To: All employees

In an effort to boost worker morale, management has decided to institute the following changes in workplace regulations, effective immediately:

1. The 40-hour work week shall be phased out gradually over the coming month and replaced with a two-day work week. Actually, screw that. From now on, the work week will start on Tuesday and end on Wednesday. Of course, management realizes you have already worked Monday of this week, so go ahead and take this Wednesday off and we'll start the new schedule next Tuesday, which means today (Tuesday) is like Friday, but only this week. Does that make sense? Great, great.
2. Beginning next week, we're having casual Wednesdays every week. Wait. Should I capitalize Casual Wednesdays? Who cares? Point is, let's really push the boundaries on this, OK? None of this namby pamby "office casual" Dockers and oxfords bum fuckery. No. Let's really let it all hang out. I'm talking shorts, t-shirts, flops, halter tops, the whole works. (P.S. I'm just kidding on the halter tops.)
(P.P.S. But not really.)
3. After lunch, consider this office a booze friendly environment! Seriously, gang. You're here 16 hours a week. Take a load off, for God's sake. Life's too short.
4. Enough of this smooth jazz bullshit. Effective immediately, management is tuning the office's radio in to 94.1 WYSP, Philly's Home of Classic Rock.
And then we're breaking the knob off the fucking radio.
Also, if anybody gets them to play Slow Ride during the all-request lunch hour, that person gets the rest of the day off. Seriously.
5. We've talked about this long enough and I'm tired of excuses: I want Baggo set up in the parking lot today.
6. Four words: Hawaiian Shirt Gonzo Wednesday.
7. Say goodbye to weekly staff meetings. Say hello to youtube and Krispy Kreme. My office. Every Tuesday.
8. The last Wednesday of the month will be "Bring Your (whatever) to Work Day." I'll take your suggestions for future themes, but this month's is going to be, "Bring Your Ex-wife to Work Day." (I'm looking at you, Henderson from accounting.)
9. Middle-management no longer needs to CC me on every Goddamn interoffice email. Seriously.
10. Pets in the work place? I say: Why the fuck not?

George out!


Re: New Office Regulations
From: George Peterson (Gpeterson@lipman.com)
Sent: Tues 5/11/10 9:05 AM
To: All employees

Please disregard the email I sent last night outlining new office regulations. I regret any confusion or personal offense it caused anyone, especially Henderson from accounting.

Sincerely,

George Peterson

May 10 - The Seer

He was old.
Nobody knew for sure how old, but for as long as anyone could remember, he'd been close enough to death for it to reach out and ruffle his few remaining hairs. And yet--there's no other way to put it--he kept on not dying.
It was beyond his caretakers' comprehension.
He didn't eat--no teeth. He was fed intravenously.
Never left his bed.
Never talked. He'd lost his larynx to throat cancer years ago.
Every day was the same. He lay in bed. Unless there were visitors, the only sounds came from the medical equipment and old Chinese music that played at a low volume.
His eyes were cloudy and grey, and usually clenched shut. He was legally blind.
His skin stretched over his face so tightly that it looked translucent over his cheekbones.
His torso was so emaciated you could almost see his organs. Sallow skin clung to his ribcage and wispy white hairs protruded from his droopy brown nipples. Both his legs had been amputated several years ago, bit by bit. First the toes, then the feet, shins, above the knees, etc. All that was left were rumors of two bony nubs coming out of his waist. His right arm had gone in similar piecemeal fashion. Only the pointer finger remained on his left hand.
He took visitors, mostly from the Chinese immigrant population that comprised the bulk of his neighborhood. Whenever anyone came in, he or she would ask his caretakers--his three great nieces and a day nurse--if he was sleeping or awake.
"Neither," they would say sometimes.
"Both," they would say the rest of the time.
Visitors would ask him questions about the past, the future, and unseen things happening back in China.
As they told their stories, he lay in bed, eyes clenched shut--no movement except his jaw, which moved rigorously even though his mouth was closed.
Minutes would pass after they'd told their stories: no sound except the medical equipment and the Chinese music if they'd forgotten to turn it down. Then suddenly, his one remaining finger would tap out a brief Morse code response to the question. Very often the response was cryptic, but there were no follow-up questions.
Most people made their inquiries in Chinese, but sometimes second or third generation kids used English. He responded to their questions, even though he'd never learned English.
Most of his family had either passed away or gone back to China. Of the ones who were still around, nobody had known about his gift until after his health went bad.
Nobody kept track of how accurate his responses were, but there was never more than a day that went by when he didn't have a visitor.

May 9 - (Not Necessarily Autobiographical) Thoughts on Mother's Day at Different Ages in a Son's Life

Every year for Mother's Day, his father asked him to make a list of things he loved about his mother.
This is what he wrote when he was five: I love my Momy because: She makes Chocklit Chip Cookys and blows on my nee if I fall off my bisikkel and tuks me in at niht.
When he was 11 years old, this is what he put on his list: I love my Mom because she always stops at 7-11 after soccer practice and buys us Gatorade. I also love my Mom because she helps me with my homework and lets me stay up later and watch PG-13 movies.
When he was 16: A really cool thing about my mom is that she doesn't make me clean my room anymore, or at least not that often. I also like that she lets me pick the music in the car, and she actually knows some of it, so, she's actually paying attention to it. She's also cool about letting me stay out late, as long as I call. I also like it that both she and my dad come to all my games. And they cheer and everything, but they're not embarrassing about it like some of the other parents are. I also like it that she makes me do my homework, and I know that sounds weird, but deep down inside I know I need to get good grades, even though I don't always act like it. And it's good that she nags me about it. There, I said it.
When he was 23: One thing I really appreciate about my mom is that she doesn't make me feel guilty about living far away and probably not calling as often as I should. And when I do call or email or visit, she's actually interested in what I'm up to, even though it's nothing glamorous. And this last one is totally going to sound dorky, but whatever: She makes me feel good about myself, even though most of my friends have been kicking the ass of this whole life thing a little harder than I have since college. I'm usually too cool to let on how much I appreciate it, but it's nice to have that encouragement.
When he was 35: Now that I'm a parent of my own, I'm starting to get a real appreciation for everything my mom did for me for, well, for all my life. I mean, I guess I'd always been kind of aware of those kinds of things, but now that I'm going through parenthood myself? Wow.
But what I like about her now--like, not in retrospect, but now--is the advice and insight she gives me when I ask for it--and that she doesn't give to me when I don't. I like that she's known me all my life and remembers stuff about me. Sometimes her memory is a little selective and revisionist, but I don't mind, because it's good to hear nice things about myself every once in a while. Mostly, though, I like how she's a constant. The world's always changing, and people are always coming and going, and I might live here this year and someplace else next year, but no matter what else happens, I know she's my mom. And I like that.

May 8 - Single Ladies

The worst part about the girl's music bleeding out of her earbuds was that he recognized the song and couldn't not sing along with it in his head: All the single ladies, all the single ladies. And the worst part about that was that it was such a catchy song--the kind that drills through your ear and burrows into the snuggest, most secure part of your brain and sets up camp there and starts a family--that he knew he'd be singing it for days, weeks.
Everybody else on the bus was quiet. Everybody except the girl he was sitting next to. Her and her iPod and her nose ring and her spiky black hair. Her mascara and jeans skirt and black bra strap peaking out from under her tank top. He tried to focus on his book, but it was no use.
He glanced over her way briefly in the hopes that she would see him looking at her and immediately understand why he was looking at her and offer to turn down her music and then apologize to him and introduce herself to him and tell him that she was only listening to the song ironically and that the rest of the music on her iPod was much more in tune (ha ha) with his musical tastes, and what are we doing wasting our time on this bus when we could be having hot, wet sex in that skanky dive hotel right over there, yes, that one, and grab his hand and off they'd go.
And that's what it came down to: Yes her tinny, trebbly music was annoying as hell, but the bottom line was that she was hot. Actually doing anything to make her turn her music down--giving her an annoyed face and pointing at her earbuds, miming the act of turning a volume knob down, or just asking her--would only result in her turning him down as well. So he did nothing and said nothing, and sat there feigning aloofness as he read the same sentence yet again and tried to convince himself that that was the best shot he had with her. Play it cool.
The old lady on the other side of the girl tapped her on the shoulder and asked her to please turn her music down.
After the girl gave the old lady a half smile and dialed the volume down, he gave the girl a Can you believe that old crow? look and rolled his eyes, but she didn't notice him. He looked around the bus and glanced back at her a few more times and then went back to his book.
At least it was quiet.