Tricks, Treats, and Flamethrowers

Howdy, Faithful Readers

I appreciate all of the comments on the last entry. It's good to know you're out there. Keep 'em comin'.

Well, last weekend I bought a bass and headed out for Hita, where Phil lives. We got to play a little gig for a Halloween party...it was a bit of a weak setup. There was no bass amp (I just hapened to bring my little, tiny, miniscule 10-watt amp, so we mic-ed that...sounded pretty bad. But...after only really playing bass for 6 months...and not playing it at all for the last year and a half...I was amazed at how quickly I picked up the basslines again. We ended up playing about 10 songs with a 38-year-old Japanese drummer named Luchi. He's cool as hell...spent two years living in Kenya and picked up English from the people there. Here's him and his wife, Eriko.



I think I'll just put up a few pictures and give you little captions for them. Don't really want to direct you back to Webshots, 'cause they keep sending me stats on how many views/downloads I've had...and, frankly, they're not impressive numbers. So...apparently that wasn't a popular option. Anyway...here goes.

Tam and the DJ showed up in the same costume...what are the odds? Actually...Doraemon is one of the most recognizable figures in Japan, so...the odds are probably pretty good.



Aaron wearing my Mexican Wrestler mask...I wore it most of the night (including during the show), along with a home-made felt cape, tight spandex pants, and a ball of yarn down the front of my pants.



Pirate Phil singing a little karaoke (pronounced "car ah okay" in Japan) as the party winds down.



An awful shot of a most delicious spread.



Tadau, the dude that made it all possible.



A re-creation of the crowds going wild for our stellar performance (they were very kind...).



And, for those of you who want to see pictures of ME on this blog...sorry, but I didn't have my camera out during the performance, so I don't have any shots of the band. BUT...how about a headshot of me wearing Aaron's Clockwork Orange hat?



So, that pretty much sums up that party. Now, onto the next. Tori put on a Halloween party for her kids at school and was kind enough to invite me to carve jack-o-lanterns. It was fun. There were more costumes, itty-bitty Japanese pumpkins, and delicious food (including roasted pumpkin seeds and...my childhood favorite...mud cups with worms!!). I won't post pictures here, 'cause Tori has a nice summary on her blog (link on the right).

And now for something completely different:

My school is getting ready for its 100th Anniversary Culture Festival, so today we spent a few hours outside, cleaning up the school grounds...y'know...to impress the parents (Kind of like how Willamette used to bring in ice sculptures of swans during parents' week and graduation. I hate to tell you this, Mom and Dad, but those swans were NOT always there. Hard to believe, I know). This is the second time we've done this since I got here, and I have to tell you...it's nice to see everybody chipping in, but at the same time, it's a little bit pathetic. The group I was working with, for example, was comprised of 40 students. We were in charge of a few acres of land and we were - I kid you not - supposed to PULL the dead, dry grass. That's right, we were supposed to get down on our hands and knees and just rip as much of the grass out of the ground as possible. There were two - count them, two - hoes (I got lucky enough to have one of them for the majority of the afternoon), but the other 38 people just had to tear up the grass with their bare hands. This system wasn't isolated to my group, either. It was the same for all (nearly 800) of the students. The entire scene just stunk of inefficiency. The kids knew it, too. Most of them just sat and poked at the ground while a few of us did the work.

So, to make it seem like more was getting done, they brought out two flamethrowers. I'm not talking little blow torches here, folks...I'm talking honest to God FLAMETHROWERS. Two teachers carried them around, sporadically torching spots of grass for a while, then decided to concentrate on one area...just burn everything down. The flames were uncomfortably close and uncomfortably hot...and the smoke didn't help the situation much either. It was basically a miserable idea. By the time the two hours were up, I looked at what I had done, and I looked at what the two men with the big, smelly, smoking, gas-burning, greenhouse-effect-causing flame throwers had done...and, yup, it was the same. I, with my pathetic little hoe, had done the work of two men and a few gallons of gasoline. As for the other 38 people in my group...honestly, what can you expect when you tell people to PULL grass? The field ended up looking like a flea-ridden dog...extremely patchy and equally unhealthy.

We may not have ice sculptures, but hey...we do what we can. I hope the parents appreciate it.

After all, it's the thought that counts, right?