A Carton of Juicy.

Well, it was a pretty raucous evening. It was good partying with Mark again and I eventually returned home at 5:00, nice to cab home in the early morning sunshine. DJ Mokugohan started the ball rolling with a mellow funk that included my new all-time favourite mix, some weird "Superfriends" extravaganza (it now replaces his "Rocky Horror Science Fiction" tune as my favourite.) J-Loop's set was nice and sweet (and for once, I sat through the entire thing.) Then Mark Saito went nuts with his wacky mishmash of genres via his new Mac Remixing thingamagig (don't you love it when I get all technical?) The showcase act was this John Wayyne vs Beat Respect duo that I completely loathed. It was the most derivative techno/house/trance set I've ever heard. It was all down on cds that they had self-produced (how hard is that to spin?) and according to the ladies in the place, they were a pair of horny octopi. Needless to say I was unimpressed. DJs Mixture & Taka played back and forth until 4 (I really enjoyed their stuff but was getting kinda pooped.) Then the "Duke" got back up and it was time for me to take my leave. (A couple of A-holes in my humble opinion.)

All in all a ripping night. We had over a 100 people show, 2/3 of them were ladies (good call on the discount ticket, Dave!) Here's a few shots of the mania...

Mark Saito in action.













The crowd, with a few bald heads in the herd.













Like my new shirt?














Hitomi and her friend (whose name eludes me)












Sakhr from Yemen ("Yeah, Man"...a joke I make every time I see him and it hasn't been funny yet!)












Dave & his bevy of babes.













I think he just beamed in for this tune.













Dave is becoming even more popular than me at these events!

Spinning me softly with his song.

How did Mark's bereted head get in this pic at that angle?

















Dave's not the only one getting some action.















This is a former student from my Tokiwagi days, Sayuri.













Jason looks SO cool. Smoking!














It's Techno-girl, Eriko (who has an annoying habit of referring to me as "papa".












Shaft owner, Dom, poking his head in.
















Taka attack!













The shaded guys are those shady Tokyo guys that I took a disliking to.













A trio of guys enjoying themselves
(see...I don't only take pics of females!)











The Big Apple (boy, bet he's never heard that one before.)















Nori on the left...thanks SOOOO much for helping me set up my new computer, so I could make this post today!











See you all next month!

Juicy Fruits...

Of our labours. Tonight is another Echophonyk gig at Shaft and it promises to be a good one. Mark Saito is here from Tokyo to enlighten us with Computer-induced auditory enjoyment. There's some other guy from Tokyo named DJ John Wayyne (can't the guy spell?) who is apparently famous, though I've never heard of him. (But I've never heard of any DJ who is outside of my circle of friends!) DJs Mixture (organizer extraordinaire), Mokugohan (battling the flu to come down), J-Loop (Boop boop a doop), Taka (just to prove we're not all gaijin) will also be on hand to WOW us with tunes. I can't wait...

So come on down, it should be a blast!

(Tomorrow, I'll be good and sleepy, but I'm finally getting a new computer so I'll be able to blog to my heart's content. WooHoo...million times faster blogging!)

Happy Flag Day.

...to our Southern Neighbours...

There Ain't no Kyuri for the Summertime Blues!

According to this article, Pepsi has been way behind in the Cola Wars, so they've brought out a new "Pepsi Ice Cucumber" which has "the refreshing taste of a fresh cucumber".
"We wanted a flavor that makes people think of keeping cool in the summer heat," spokesperson Takemoto said. "We thought the cucumber was just perfect."
For me, cucumbers don't evoke coolness, that'd be watermelon...mmmm Watermelon-Pepsi! I sampled a bottle today and gave some to a co-worker. He commented "尼イ!"　(amai) which means sweet. I personally found it to be overly-sweet but tasteless. It does though have a cucumberish odour & a slight cucumberish aftertaste to it.





They like to eat their cucumbers (きゅうり=kyuri) here with mayo as a dip. Personally, I soak mine in vinegar overnight. I guess my taste buds can't relish a sweet cucumber...I'm sweet enough as it is!

Weird Crap I'm watching in the wee hours on Japanese TV:

Occasionally my insomniac ways force me to surf around the tube. I often get some real treats, such as the following...

I really can't find much info about this one in English. Suffice to say the good guys look like bees and have a phallic antenna upon their heads. The bad guys look like Captain Kangaroo. And we all thought the Teletubbies were strange.

チビラクンの卷　(chibira-kun no kan, 1968) Look it up yourself, maybe you'll have better luck, or check out this site: chibira.

Another Ultraman/ Kamen Rider clone from the mid 70's was:

バトルホーク (Battle Hawk from 1976)

Again, I couldn't find too much out. But there seems to be lots of stuff for sale via E-bay.

Good old Osamu Tezuka of Astroboy fame has come up with a winner in Princess Knight. Before I read the Wiki entry, I had no idea that the little guy was an angel, Choppy, in Mini-me mode. When nothing else is on, it runs nightly on the Cartoon Network's Boomerang segment.

More wacky shows as my sleeplessness continues...

I had a few other photos but they have been taken down for some reason...

Why Johnny Depp Rocks!

I love everything this guy does and it's nice to see that he's as charming in person as he is on the screen (even when he's evil!) Just watch this one video and how polite he is to the bizarre little urchins careening around the stage! "WOW!"



If you want to see more, link away to see more Deppths of weirdness.

YouTubed Again!

And you know how painful that can be. Way back in this post, was the St. Patrick's Day Parade (and another one) on April Fool's Day. Our very own DJ Mixture spun away, much to the enjoyment of the masses. His biggest fan filmed a snippet of his gig and once again downloaded it onto YouTube. Here it is in all it's glory:



I especially like the little jig danced by his onlooker at the end of the video!

Kudos to Donald Fauntleroy Duck.

Hey, today is Donald Duck's birthday. He made his debut in "The Wise Little Hen" way back in 1934. He was only a minor character but made a big splash. One of my favourite Disney creations, DD has always quacked me up.

I have all kinds of Mickey Mouse crap, but very little merchandise of DD collected over the years. This little stuffed ball is about all I have.

Here's one of my favourite Duck cartoons, and one you won't see on TV anytime soon...



Speaking of Ducks, kudos also are due to the former Mighty Ducks as they win their first ever Stanley Cup. 'Twas a fine battle by the Senators, but Anaheim proved too strong in their defense and yet were only a single goal ahead after 4 games! I suppose they decided not to prolong the agony and conquered Ottawa 6-2 in the 5th and final match. It wasn't the most dramatic finale, but it did the trick and once again a Canadian team is unable to win Lord Stanley's Cup. As much as I'd like to have seen Ottawa take it, comfort is gained by the Ducks roster, which is made up of more Canucks than any other NHL team.

Good news is that I won the pool with 92 points acquired thanks to choice of several Dans and a Teemu. As a final comment, thanks to the shoddy unsportsmanlike conduct of Pronger's two elbowing game misconducts and Alfredsson's slapshot to the back of Scott Niedermayer, I don't foresee them dating Lady Byng anytime in the near future.

Wait until next year, you better BE LEAF!

Long Bow Hunters.

On Monday, I had the privilege of attending 弓道 (Kyudo=Japanese Archery).

From Wiki, here's the Kyudo technique or the hassetsu (or "eight stages of shooting"). The hassetsu consists of the following steps:

1. Ashibumi, placing the footing. The archer steps on to the line from where arrows are fired (known as the shai) and turns to face the kamiza, so that the left side of his body faces the target. He then sights from the target to his feet and sets his feet apart so that the distance between them is equal to his yatsuka, approximately half his body height. A line drawn between the archer's toes should pass through the target after the completion of the ashibumi.
2. Dozukuri, forming the body. The archer verifies his balance and that his pelvis and the line between his shoulders are parallel to the line set up during ashibumi.
(a)Yugamae, readying the bow. Yugamae consists of three phases:
(b)Torikake, gripping of the bowstring with the right hand.
(c)Tenouchi, the left hand is positioned for shooting on the bow's grip.
3. Monomi, the archer turns his head to gaze at the target.
4. Uchiokoshi, raising the bow. The archer raises the bow above his head to prepare for the draw.
5. Hikiwake, drawing apart. The archer starts bringing down the bow while spreading his arms, simultaneously pushing the bow with his left hand and drawing the string with the right, until the arrow is level with his eyebrows.
6. Kai, the full draw. The archer continues the movement started in the previous phase, until he reaches full draw with the arrow placed slightly below his cheekbone. The arrow points along the line set up during ashibumi.
7. Hanare, the release. The bowstring is released from the right hand.
8. Zanshin, "the remaining body or mind" or "the continuation of the shot". The archer remains in the position reached after hanare while returning from the state of concentration associated with the shot.
(If you want definitions of the above, seek them out yourself. What am I a dictionary?)

Oh, and the title of this post refers to this. My favourite Green Arrow storyline and what got me hooked on Oliver again.

Attack #1!

アタック No. 1 was an manga/anime series back in the early 70's and began the boom of female anime series (少女 or shoujo), in this case, Volleyball. After the women's Volleyball team won the Gold in the '64 Olympic Games, everyone jumped on the bandwagon. Here is the official site of the recent live action adaptation.



Last Saturday, (while fighting a nasty head cold which has now developed to a mild case of Bronchitis), I attended a quarter-finals Volleyball tournament.

Bowling for Dolls.

A week ago, I went bowling with the gang from 305. Why, you may ask, would one hang out with this motley crew? Let the photos speak for themselves...































This last guy is one of the owners and a fun guy to boot. Incidentally, my score that day was my worst to date! I barely broke a hundred in the first game!












Speaking of Dolls, June 3rd is "Memorial to Broken Dolls Day". A Buddhist observance when broken dolls are enshrined by a priest. That's the only detail I could dig up on the occurrence.

Pack Brats.

I have been leading up to the 80's pinnacle of Pack-men (& women) and they are none other than: Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy, the Brat Pack. (Definitely click there if you want bios of the Pack, it saves me the trouble of linking.)

I'm not going to bother going on about these brats but perhaps I should clue you in on why I've gone off tangentially on these Pack-posts in the first place. Dave, Rob, Alex and I popped into this bar called St. Elmo's Place last Friday. Maynard & Blaise of Monkey Majik fame also made an appearance and jocularity ensued.

A cool little sports bar with Darts and a Foozball game (the first I've seen in Japan) AND the walls were plastered with posters of the Brat Pack (et al.) These BP movies, St Elmos Fire/ The Breakfast Club/ Pretty In Pink/ Sixteen Candles/ Weird Science/ Class/ About Last Night and The Outsiders were all represented, as well as a few Lea Thompson & Matthew Broderick posters (whom I always considered to be honourary Brat Packers, if not canonical.)

Only guys seemed to frequent the joint, but there was a lovely waitress, named Yoshie who joined us in darts and spoke a smattering of English. WooHoo! We have now found a new place to hang out!















Everyone split up and most went home, except Dave & I. Dave moved on to Shaft to listen to this infamous DJ from Germany, who just happens to be a Pron star over there. I hooked up with the gang at 305 and went bowling with them on Sunday. But that's a post for another day...














(A brief aside...According to their website, MM have sold out of their summer tour promoting their new cd. Thank goodness, Blaise's friend wrangled us some tickets. Should be a blast...)

Leader of the Packs!

Since the Rat Pack was named by Lauren Bacall at Bogey's home, that alone puts them at the Top of the Heap. But there are other lesser important Packs out there. Here's a few...

The Frat Pack: core members include...Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Jack Black, and Steve Carell. Coined by USA TODAY a few years back, this outdated chart outlines the various criss-crossing of careers for your convenience. I've seen many of their efforts and find them more amusing than annoying, but a fine line does get tread there occasionally. The only movie of theirs that I own is Dodgeball, which I picked up for a mere fin on St. Patrick's Day at a flea market.

The one member, whose career I've followed the longest, is Ben Stiller's. I first remember him in an eponymous Fox show called The Ben Stiller Show that only lasted a short time when Fox was still in its infancy. But I was aware of his parents for decades prior to that from appearances on Ed Sullivan, Tonight Show, etc. Their marriage has lasted over 50 years...a milestone by Hollywood terms! Jerry Stiller is best remembered as George's dad, Frank Costanza on Seinfeld and I have fond memories of Anne Meara from her days on Archie Bunker's Place as the nasty waitress. If the pack can be considered a Fraternity, than these two can be considered their Den Parents for they've made several cameos in Frat Pack movies (my favourite being Zoolander! Maury Ballstein: I've got a prostate the size of a honeydew and a head full of bad memories.)
Here's the Gas Fight...



The Power Pack: cheesy kids comic from 1984 that lasted 60ish issues. I bought the first couple of dozen and enjoyed their innocence. After one two many Wolverine x-overs, I gave up on them. I understand they've been revamped a few times, but I don't know anything about that.
















The Scat Pack...Head up by Mr. Hankey, it also includes Winnie the Pooh and this trio from Japan...ウンチ (unchi). I'm not serious about this last one, but it'd be cool!





Coming up next, the iconic 80's Pack (and the reason I'm posting this stuff in the first place.)

Pack Rats

First it was the Rat Pack: consisting of the quintessential quintet of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop (I liked him on password, I was too young to see him on the Tonight Show.) The first three are the only ones with musical talent, but they all contributed to the Pack (such as Lawford's connection as JFK's brother-in-law and the guy who introduced Marilyn for his birthday tune.)


Precognitively, he introduced the tardy lass as the "late" Marilyn. She died soon after.

I frequently channel Frankie during karaoke bouts and click here if you'd like to learn to talk like him. I have a couple of his cds and this one is my favourite.














As for Sammy, I only have this cd but it is really swinging, baby. I loved him on All in the Family. An all-time classic television moment:





















And the only Rat Pack movie I own is this one. Bing replaced Lawford in this one (because Peter didn't hook Frank up with JFK, he was given the boot!)

I love Dean in this movie and every other movie he shows up in, especially those with out Lewis. (Though those are good too, but a bit too sober for my tastes.)














Tomorrow I'll talk about a couple of other influential packs, but for now, I can't get started!

Silky & Spicy

There's gonna be a loverly SINGLES PARTY at Ernie's bar this Thursday (and any last Thursday of the month.) Check out this Rose:















Come for the Darts Tournament, stay for the Ripping music by DJs SPONY & MIXTURE & a guest.
For more details, look at this:















You might just find that certain someone that you've been searching for...